Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MILFORD HAVEN (TIDAL BARRAGE) BILL [Lords]

Mr. Donnelly: I beg to move,
That the Milford Haven (Tidal Barrage) Bill [Lords] be re-committed to the former Committee and that it be an Instruction to

CLOSURE OF DEBATE (STANDING ORDER No. 29)


Return ordered,


"respecting application of Standing Order No. 29 (Closure of Debate) during Session 1958–59 (1) in the House and in Committee of the whole House, under the following heads:—


1
2
3
4
5
6


Date when Closure moved, and by whom
Question before House or Committee when moved
Whether in House or Committee
Whether assent given to Motion or withheld by Speaker or Chairman
Assent withheld because, in the opinion of the Chair, a decision would shortly be arrived at without that Motion
Result of Motion and, if a Division, Numbers for and against

PRIVATE BILLS AND PRIVATE BUSINESS

Return ordered,
of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders introduced into the House of Commons and brought from the House of Lords, and of Acts passed in Session 1958–59:
Of all Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which in Session 1958–59 were reported on by Committees on Opposed Bills or by Committees nominated partly by the House and partly by the Committee of Selection, together with the names of the selected Members who served

the Committee on the re-committed Bill that they have power to reconsider their decision on the Preamble of the Bill as reported by them to the House.

Hon. Members: Object.

Mr. Speaker: What day?

Mr. Donnelly: Tomorrow.

ADJOURNMENT MOTIONS UNDER STANDING ORDER No. 9

Return ordered,
of Motions for Adjournment under Standing Order No. 9 (Adjournment on definite matter of urgent public importance), showing the date of such Motion, the name of the Member proposing the definite matter of urgent public importance and the result of any Division taken thereon, during Session 1958–59."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

on each Committee; the first and also the last day of the sitting of each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee-sat; the number of days on which each selected Member served; the number of days occupied by each Bill in Committee; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been proved; the Bills of which the Preambles were reported to have been not proved; and, in the case of Bills for confirming Provisional Orders, whether the Provisional Orders ought or ought not to be confirmed:

Of all Private Bills and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders which, in Session 1958–59. were referred by the Committee of Selection to Committees on Unopposed Bills, together with the names of the Members who served


on each Committee; the number of days on which each Committee sat; and the number of days on which each Member attended:

And, of the number of Private Bills, Hybrid Bills, and Bills for confirming Provisional Orders withdrawn or not proceeded with by the parties, those Bills being specified which were referred to Committees and dropped during the sittings of the Committee."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PUBLIC BILLS

Return ordered,
of the number of Public Bills, distinguishing Government from other Bills, introduced into this House, or brought from the House of Lords, during Session 1958–59 showing:

(1) the number which received the Royal Assent;
(2) the number which did not receive the Royal Assent, indicating those which were introduced into but not passed by this House, those passed by this House but not by the House of Lords, those passed by the House of Lords but not by this House, those passed by both Houses but Amendments not agreed to; and distinguishing the stages at which such Bills were dropped, postponed or rejected in either House of Parliament, or the stages which such Bills had reached by the time of the Prorogation."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

PUBLIC PETITIONS

Return ordered,
of the number of Public Petitions presented and printed in Session 1958–59 with the total number of signatures in that Session."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

SELECT COMMITTEES

Return ordered,
of the Select Committees appointed in Session 1958–59, with the Sub-Committees appointed by them; the name of the Member who moved for each; the subjects of inquiry; the names of the Members appointed to serve on each, and of the Chairman of each; the number of days each met, and the number of days each Member attended; the total expenses of the attendances of witnesses at each Select Committee and Sub-Committee; and the total number of Members who served on Select Committees; together with so much of the same information as is relevant to the Chairmen's Panel and the Court of Referees."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE AND BUSINESS OF SUPPLY

Return ordered,
of (1) the days on which the House sat in Session 1958–59, stating for each day of the month and day of the week, the hour of the

meeting, and the hour of the adjournment; and the total number of hours occupied in the Sittings of the House, and the average time; and showing the number of hours on which the House sat each day, and the number of hours after the time appointed for the interruption of business; and the number of entries in each day's Votes and Proceedings; and (2) the days on which Business of Supply was considered."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

STANDING COMMITTEES

Return ordered,
for Session 1958–59, of (1) the total number and the names of all Members (including and distinguishing Chairmen) who have been appointed to serve on one or more of the Standing Committees showing, with regard to each of such Members, the number of sittings to which he was summoned and at which he was present; (2) the number of Bills considered by all and by each of the Standing Committees, the number of Bills considered in relation to their principle and the number of Estimates and Matters considered, by the Scottish Standing Committee, the number of sittings of each Committee and the titles of all Bills, Estimates and Matters considered by a Standing Committee, distinguishing where a Bill was a Government Bill or was brought from the House of Lords, and showing, in the case of each Bill, the particular Committee by whom it was considered, the number of sittings at which it was considered, the number of Members present at each of those sittings and, in the case of Estimates and Matters, the number of days on which they were considered and the number of Members present on each of those days."—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS

Address for Return,
of Experiments performed under the Act 39 and 40 Vict. c. 77, during 1958."—[Mr. Renton.]

ALIENS AND BRITISH PROTECTED PERSONS (NATURALISATION)

Address for Return,
showing (1) Particulars of all Aliens and British Protected Persons to whom Certificates of Naturalisation have been issued and whose Oaths of Allegiance have, during the year ended the 31st day of December, 1958, been registered or recorded at the Home Office; and (2) Particulars of cases in which persons previously naturalised have been deprived of their citizenship of the United Kingdom and Colonies during the same period."—[Miss Hornsby-Smith.]

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Thor Missile

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Secretary of State for Air how many successful and unsuccessful firings, respectively, of the United States Thor missile have been made by the Royal Air Force in the United States of America.

The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): There have been two firings by the R.A.F. On the first occasion, the missile performed faultlessly; on the second, a technical fault developed during the early stages of flight and the missile was therefore destroyed.

Mr. de Freitas: Can the Secretary of State give any estimate as to how long he expects it to be before the Thor can be regarded as an operational missile rather than as a training missile, as I understand it is regarded today?

Mr. Ward: No, Sir. I am afraid I cannot give any estimate of that, but, of course, we shall as soon as possible make some statement.

Daily Mail Air Race

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he is aware of the admiration felt in this country and abroad for the initiative, drive and organisation shown by members of the Royal Air Force in the recent London to Paris race; if he will list the units which have taken part in this exercise; and whether he will make a statement.

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Air if he will make a statement on the participation of the Royal Air Force in theDaily Mailair race.

Mr. Ward: The Royal Air Force team, under the control of Fighter Command, included three officers from R.A.F. Station Duxford and one officer cadet from the R.A.F. College, Cranwell. They obtained first and third places in the race. Their average time on completed runs between London and Paris was less than 44 minutes. The Hunter and helicopter pilots, motor cyclists and servicing, radar and airfield teams were drawn from

a number of units from Commands at home and R.A.F. Germany.
I am grateful for this opportunity to refer to the success which was achieved and which reflects, I think, considerable credit on all the officers and airmen who took part.

Mr. de Freitas: Does the Secretary of State recognise that, since the age of the amateur in these things appears to have passed completely, there are many people who have a very great deal of admiration for the way a professional Service like this was able to take part in this race, giving such pleasure to many millions and also a sense of stimulation to itself?

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Secretary of State aware that those of us who have served in the Royal Air Force are very proud of the fact that the Royal Air Force has pulled this off, but when in future the Royal Air Force participates in such events, can the facilities be made more widely available?

Mr. Ward: We made our facilities available to anybody who wanted to use them.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend undertake to give the Royal Navy a few lessons on how to run these affairs?

Guard Dogs (Travel)

Mr. Stonehouse: asked the Secretary of State for Air why he arranges for Royal Air Force Alsatian guard-dogs to travel on passenger trains, which is greatly to the annoyance of the travelling public and railway staff; and whether he will now discontinue this practice.

Mr. Ward: I am afraid that we cannot provide motor transport every time dogs have to be sent to another station, nor could we very well send them as freight. The handlers accompanying the dogs observe the railway regulations and we do all we can to avoid annoyance to other passengers.

Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Secretary of State aware that not enough is done to avoid inconvenience to the travelling public and that only last Friday I had complaints made to me by members of the railway staff at Waterloo who object very much to having Royal Air Force guard dogs in railway guards vans when


they have to deal with large numbers of the travelling public going on holiday? Will the right hon. Gentleman have another look at the matter?

Mr. Ward: We have certainly received no complaints from the railway staff ourselves. I am very sorry if the hon. Member was inconvenienced in this way, but as far as I can ascertain, this is only the second complaint that we have ever received about dogs travelling by passenger train. The first complaint came from an elderly lady who thought that the muzzle on one of the dogs was too tight.

Mr. de Freitas: Surely these dogs are accompanied by an attendant when they travel? They are not sent alone, are they?

Mr. Ward: They have handlers.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AVIATION

Errol Aerodrome

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will reconsider his decision to dispose of Errol aerodrome; and if he will now retain it in public ownership pending further efforts, in the light of the representations of the local authorities concerned and of the rapidly changing pattern of air transport, to establish air services from the aerodrome linking the Dundee, Angus and Perth area with London.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. John Hay): The representations of the Town Councils of Dundee and Perth, and of the Scottish Advisory Council for Civil Aviation, which I have carefully considered, do not provide any further information on the prospect of air services being operated from Errol Aerodrome. My right hon. Friend regrets, therefore, that he cannot see his way to retaining the aerodrome in State ownership and the town councils themselves have said that they are not interested in taking it over.

Mr. Thomson: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that will be generally considered in the Dundee area as a most disappointing reply in view of the fact that this airfield, far from being a charge on public funds, at present

actually shows a small annual profit? Is he further aware that an air service to the Dundee area is urgently needed as an attraction to industry to an area of high unemployment? Will he not reconsider his decision in view of the fact that, I understand, changes are being considered in the kinds of aircraft being used for domestic services which genuinely leave it open whether it may not be practicable to have services at Errol airport in future?

Mr. Hay: We have, of course, gone very carefully into all this. We are advised by British European Airways and independent operators that they cannot in the foreseeable future see any prospect for services to this particular district. It is true that at the moment at that airfield expenses and revenues roughly break even, but the State has some £27,500 in capital locked up in this place for which, apparently, there is likely to be no use in the immediate future. We feel, as we are under pressure from Parliament to reduce losses from airfields, that we must do something to recover that money.

Mr. Woodburn: Can the hon. Gentleman tell us how he will remove the capital invested in an airport like that? I am quite sure that the House is surprised to hear, with developing air traffic in Scotland, that there is not likely to be a use for that airport.

Mr. Hay: Yes. We shall, of course, dispose of the land and the buildings and any of the equipment that we have there, and we hope to recover some of the money which has been invested, which, as I have just said, amounts to £27,500 at present-day values. Unfortunately, there are no people who want to use or run services into Errol. That is a fact, and I am afraid that there is nothing my right hon. Friend can do to compel them to provide such services.

Belfast Airport

Mr. Knox Cunningham: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will now make a statement with regard to the future of Belfast Airport; and when work to improve the airport facilities will start.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State


has agreed in principle to the joint use of Aldergrove R.A.F. Station as the civil airport for Belfast. This is a most satisfactory outcome to our discussions, and I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for agreeing to the principle of joint use. Aldergrove is operationally considerably superior to Nutts Corner and joint use offers the prospect of considerable savings to the taxpayer.
The form of joint use proposed envisages the R.A.F. retaining responsibility for Air Traffic Control of civil as well as military aircraft, and the development by my Ministry of a civilian terminal area. Detailed planning studies are being pushed forward as rapidly as possible to the stage where a programme of work can be drawn up.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that Answer, may I ask whether he can give some estimate of the cost of this change? Can he say when the work is likely to start?

Mr. Watkinson: We would wish the work to start as soon as it possibly can. I could not give an estimate of costs, but I think my hon. and learned Friend would like to know that we do propose to provide full, proper civil facilities at Aldergrove.

Transport Flight Safety Committee

Sir A. V. Harvey: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what arrangements exist to ensure, in the interests of air safety, that the experience of all types of civil aircraft operators is fully utilised.

Mr. Watkinson: To ensure the closest co-operation between all operators, I have arranged for a Transport Flight Safety Committee. Its members will be the Air Corporations, the British Independent Air Transport Association, the Air Registration Board, the Directorate of Flight Safety of the Air Ministry, Transport Command and my Department. The Chairmanship will rotate between the airline members and my Department will provide the Secretary. Its task will be to consider problems of flight safety organisation, to agree uniform systems for the collection, analysis and exchange of information and to advise on safety publicity within the industry.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Is my right hon. Friend aware that what he has said will give considerable satisfaction? Will he ensure that this Committee, unlike some others, meets frequently and gets through a busy agenda?

Mr. Watkinson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The Committee has a useful job to do. I hope that it will get to work, and I agree with my hon. Friend that it should meet quite frequently at the beginning.

Mr. Beswick: We agree that this is a useful job to do in pooling ideas on safety, but what further steps is the right hon. Gentleman taking to see that whatever suggestions or recommendations are made are enforced? The good companies will accept the recommendations. What steps is he taking to enforce them on the bad companies?

Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member will have a chance to pursue his campaign against the bad companies later at Question Time. If he will read my Answer carefully, he will see that the Committee itself has to agree to a proper system for collecting information and getting its recommendations known and adopted.

Independent Air Travel Ltd.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what licences have been granted by the Air Transport Advisory Council on behalf of his Department for the operation of inclusive tours by Independent Air Travel Ltd., or its successor company, Blue Air Ltd.

Mr. Watkinson: If the Question relates to approvals currently in force, the answer is "None, Sir".

Mr. Beswick: If that is the case, how does it come about that this company is operating regularly each week from this country to the Continent and is not laying before the Minister any of the operating schedules? What action is he taking in this matter?

Mr. Watkinson: I do not know whether the hon. Member is dealing with charter work, licensed work or inclusive tours, or what. As he knows as well as I do, there are certain charter operations which any operator can carry out that do not require prior approval


from my Ministry. As to the general issue, that is raised in later Questions of his own.

Mr. Beswick: The right hon. Gentleman cannot get away from it. This company, under another name, was granted certain licences to operate certain scheduled tours. As he said last week, the licences were taken away. The company is still carrying on with its programme. What action is the right hon. Gentleman taking?

Mr. Watkinson: As I have said, the hon. Member had better await the Answer to another Question of his. I am not sure that the hon. Member is wise to pursue this vendetta against independent airlines.

Mr. Beswick: On a point of order. Is the Minister in order in suggesting that proper Questions, properly put to him, about matters which are of public concern can be characterised as a vendetta?

Mr. Speaker: The expression "vendetta" really means a feud, does it not? It is something like that, and I think that within the realms of ordinary Parliamentary discussion I have heard very much worse things said.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what representations have been made to his Department about the operation of weekly air services by Independent Air Travel Ltd., or Blue Air Ltd., on behalf of its associated company, Sky Tours Ltd.; and what replies have been given to those representations.

Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman originally raised with my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary the question of Independent Air Travel. I understand that the functions of this company have now been taken over by Blue Air Travel Ltd. Representations that operations by Blue Air were in contravention of Section 24 of the Air Corporations Act, 1949 were made to my Department on 6th June and 1st July. Replies to both representations were that the matter was already under consideration. Inquiries are still proceeding.

Mr. Beswick: Is the Minister aware that this is the first time I have put a Question to him about this matter and

that one Question does not mean either a vendetta or, with respect, Mr. Speaker, a feud? May I ask if the right hon. Gentleman is aware what sort of figure he will cut, having said that he has taken away the licences from these companies, and they having consistently operated since May of this year, if they are involved in another accident? What conclusions are the public to draw?

Mr. Watkinson: I am very glad the hon. Member is making plain that he is pursuing this on a narrow front of particular companies, and I entirely accept that. I will try to explain as clearly as I can, although, as I think the hon. Member will accept, this is a somewhat complicated issue.
I have said very clearly in my Answer that we are already proceeding with an investigation into allegations that Blue Air, which I understand is the successor to the company which the hon. Member mentioned in his previous Question, is in contravention of Section 24 of the Air Corporations Act, 1949. I certainly assure the hon. Member that these investigations will be pressed forward and, if a prosecution lies, my Ministry will take all the actions necessary to see that it is brought. But I want to make quite plain that, as I am sure the House understands, these companies can operate under certain charter arrangements with which my Ministry, at present anyway, has no power to interfere.

Mr. Bence: If a man has his licence endorsed for life and then, by deed poll, he changes his name, can he get another licence?

Mr. Watkinson: I do not think that is relevant, but I think that the hon. Member would like to know—perhaps he did not hear it in the recent debate in the House—that I have said that on the representations of independent air operators themselves I am proposing to introduce a system of licensing which will enable a licence to be taken away from a company if it is felt desirable so to do.

Mr. Strauss: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this company having come to public attention, when one asks Questions about it after allegations are made, which may or may not be true, that it is contravening an Act of Parliament, an hon. Member is not carrying on a vendetta but asking something


in. the public interest? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, according to information in our possession, this company is taking about 600 people a week to Europe and has been doing so since May? Will he quickly come to a decision and find out whether in fact this company is legally in contravention of an Act of Parliament and, if so, take quick action to stop its being so?

Mr. Watkinson: I shall be only too pleased to do it and, if the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have information which will help in that, I hope that they will let me have it. I would remind them that in previous debates when they have made representations on this matter they have been asked for information and they have been unable to provide it. If this time they can do so we shall receive it with the greatest interest.

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what operational schedules have been filed by Independent Air Travel Ltd., or its successor company, Blue Air Ltd., or Falcon Airways Ltd., for flights undertaken since May of this year.

Mr. Watkinson: Air transport operators are not required to submit prior details of charter flights. None of these companies is currently approved for the operation of scheduled associate services.

Mr. Beswick: The Minister is again deliberately evading my question. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have not stated in my Question anything about prior submission? Is he further aware that the recommendations of his own Department are that the operational schedules should be filed after the flight? This company, as he well knows, is operating but is not filing any schedules. What action has he taken?

Mr. Watkinson: The Question asked what operational schedules have been filed by Independent Air Travel Ltd. and some other companies. The answer I have given states that they are not required to submit prior details of charter flights. If the hon. Gentleman claims that they are not supplying these, that is certainly not within my information, but as he has made the request to me that I should look into it, I will do so at once.

Mr. Speaker: rose—

Mr. Beswick: On a point of order. If I provide any other information about this, may I have your protection, Sir, in not having that information described either as a vendetta or a feud?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order. I would protect the hon. Member in every proper case if he needed my protection, but he himself used pretty hard language about the Minister.

Aircrew (Alcohol)

Mr. Bence: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps he proposes to take to prevent the taking of alcohol by crews of British aircraft while on duty.

Mr. Hay: There is no evidence to suggest that the existing legislation which deals with the taking of alcohol by aircraft crews has been disregarded or that more stringent legislation is needed.

Mr. Bence: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that reply, and I appreciate what he says. Does he not think, in view of the tremendous record of safety in British aircraft, which is apparently due to the strict enforcement of these Regulations, that it would contribute to greater road safety if more stringent regulations were applied to prevent the carrying of alcoholic liquor in cocktail sets in cars.

Mr. Hay: That is a little wide of the Question on the Order Paper.

Mr. Remnant: Would my hon. Friend not agree that the purport of the Question casts a quite unfair aspersion on the sobriety of those British aircrews against whom there is no evidence whatever that they take alcohol during their tour of duty, and that we should offer our congratulations to these crews?

Mr. Hay: I was advised some time ago that it was always unwise for a Minister to speculate on the motives behind a Question which an hon. Member puts down, and I would not care to speculate on this occasion.

Mr. Beswick: Will the Joint Parliamentary Secretary say what the regulation is with regard to the consumption of alcohol?

Mr. Hay: Yes. The position is that it is an offence under the Air Navigation Order, 1954, for a member of the operating crew of an aircraft, or any other person having a duty to perform in the aircraft, to fly on duty when his capacity to do so is impaired by reason of having taken any intoxicating liquor. The operators of public transport aircraft in their Operations Manuals usually provide that it is an offence against company regulations for the crew to drink on duty or within a stated period before flying.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHIPPING

Inflatable Life Rafts

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is yet in a position to state the outcome of the discussions initiated by him in the spring of 1957 for the purpose of making obligatory the carriage by all fishing and cargo vessels of inflatable life rafts; and if he will now make a comprehensive statement on the subject.

Mr. Hay: The Merchant Shipping (Life-Saving Appliances) Rules, 1958, require the carriage of inflatable life rafts in all fishing vessels over 50 ft. in length and in all cargo ships on coasting and home trade voyages. The number and capacity vary with the size and class of ship.
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea requires lifeboats to be provided for all on board on each side of a cargo ship. The desirability of replacing a proportion of those boats by inflatable life rafts in cargo ships on long international voyages will be discussed at the Conference to be held in London in May, 1960, to revise that Convention. Meanwhile owners of such ships have been recommended to carry life rafts in addition to the boats, and a majority of them do so.
Inflatable life rafts were not considered suitable for carriage in tankers on long international voyages or in whale factory ships because of the risk of fire.

Mr. Hughes: While thanking the hon. Gentleman for that long and comprehensive reply, may I ask him whether he is in a position to say in how many

cases the recommendations he has mentioned have not been carried out and how many lives have been lost since I last put this Question to him as a result of these inflatable life rafts not being carried?

Mr. Hay: No. With regard to the ships on long voyages, to which the second part of my Answer related, I am advised that some 75 per cent. of the ships involved do comply with our recommendations. Therefore, the answer to the first part of the hon. and learned Gentleman's supplementary question is 25 per cent. at the moment do not. I have no figures whatever of the losses of life, but the fact is that it is not a question of simply saying, "You must have inflatable life rafts to save life", because there are already lifeboats provided. What we want to see is some more flexible system, which we shall be going into at the conference next year.

Oil Pollution

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that the various international conventions designed to stop oil pollution of the seas round British coasts have not achieved that object and that much loss and damage to human beings, to clothing and to bird life is still caused by that pollution; which of these international conventions are now in force; and what steps he is taking to make them more effective for the purpose intended.

Mr. Hay: I regret that there have been further instances this summer of pollution of the beaches by oil. Generally, however, I am sure the position has shown improvement over the last few years.
The 1954 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil, which came into force just a year ago, lays down zones, including a wide zone around the British Isles, in which the discharge of persistent oil into the sea is prohibited.
The Convention has been ratified by 12 countries. The best immediate hope of making further progress in the campaign against oil pollution lies in securing general acceptance of the Convention and we shall continue to do all we can to achieve this.

Mr. Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the fact remains that our beaches all round the country are in a shocking condition and that, beyond putting up notices warning that beaches are polluted, very little is done to prevent pollution, which is causing great damage, as the Question indicates, to clothing and to wild fowl?

Mr. Hay: I am sorry, but the hon. and learned Gentleman is guilty of exaggeration and distortion of the facts The plain situation is that we have made considerable progress in this matter in the last few years. There are a number of incidents reported from time to time, but the owners of the ships and those who are concerned with this problem are doing a very great deal indeed at great expense to themselves to see that this nuisance is eliminated. The solution lies in international agreement, and that is what we are pledged to continue to try to achieve.

Mr. Strauss: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will make a statement on the recent International Conference held in Copenhagen to prevent Pollution of the Sea by Oil.

Mr. Watkinson: I welcome the holding of this Conference, which was arranged on the initiative of the Co-ordinating Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea of which the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) is the Chairman. The Conference was also held under his Chairmanship.
I am informed that the presence of representatives and observers from many organisations, both here and abroad, who are concerned with different aspects of oil pollution, and of a number of Governments, provided the opportunity for a most useful exchange of views. I particularly welcome the announcement made at the Conference by a representative of the United States that a recommendation that the United States should ratify the 1954 International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution of the Sea by Oil has been submitted by the United States National Committee on Oil Pollution.

Mr. Strauss: I am grateful to the Minister for that reply. Is he aware that one of the Committee's recommendations is that it is now essential that a new intergovernmental

meeting should be summoned to deal with total avoidance of the pollution of the sea by oil. As this is essential, will the Government take steps to bring about this meeting?

Mr. Watkinson: I should like to say, first, that the work of the right hon. Gentleman's hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) has been very notable. His Committee has done a first-class job in cutting down oil pollution. We are examining the question whether we ought to take the initiative in calling for an inter-governmental meeting, but it is important that the United States has now said that it will at least join the countries who have ratified the agreement.

Mr. Callaghan: May I ask the Minister, most unusually, if he is aware that the work done by his official at this conference was most notable and that it enabled the British Government to continue to give the lead that they have given for so long in this field?

Mr. Watkinson: If I might dare to say so, the end of term must be very near for the hon. Member for Cardiff, South-East (Mr. Callaghan) and I to pay one another compliments.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

H.M. Coastguards (Claims)

Mr. Hector Hughes: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will state the number and nature of claims to compensation for personal injuries, loss of clothing and other loss sustained by members of Her Majesty's Coastguards during each of the last 10 years, and the manner in which each of those claims was met by Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Hay: Since 1954 there have been no cases of personal injury which fell to be dealt with under the Superannuation Acts or the Injury Warrant, 1952. In 1957 a claim at common law was made by a coastguard who was injured n the course of duty. As negligence by the Department was not proved, liability was not admitted and no compensation was paid. I regret that information about claims to compensation for personal injuries prior to 1954 could not


be obtained without an undue expenditure of time and labour. As information about claims for loss of clothing and other loss is rather lengthy I am writing to the hon. and learned Member.

Mr. Hughes: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that all protectors of life round our coasts are not included in this scheme and that all those protectors are engaged in an equally dangerous and courageous occupation, including those employed by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution? Will he do something to provide protection for the men of that Institution?

Mr. Hay: As I explained last week when the hon. and learned Gentleman put a similar Question to me, the lifeboat service is a voluntary service and we are not responsible for making payments to it out of public funds. If the hon. and learned Member has any proposal he would like to put to us, we will certainly consider it.

Mr. G. R. Howard: Is my hon. Friend aware that the Lifeboat Institution has a very full system of compensation for lifeboatmen who are injured on duty and that that compensation is carefully considered by the Institution, recommendations are made, and pensions are paid to the widows and dependants of lifeboatmen who suffer while in the course of their duty?

Mr. Hay: Yes, I was aware of that.

Rural Bus Services (Committee)

Mr. Speir: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will now announce the names of the chairman and members of the committee he is setting up to study and report on rural transport; and when he expects the committee to start its deliberations.

Mr. Watkinson: I am glad to say that Professor D. T. Jack, Professor of Economics at the University of Durham has agreed to be chairman of the Committee on rural bus services. I will publish the names of the other members as soon as I have heard from all of them that they are prepared to accept my invitation. I hope the Committee will start work as soon as possible after it is appointed.

Mr. Speir: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that information and welcoming the appointment of Professor Jack as chairman of the Committee, may I ask whether he is fully aware of the urgency of the problem? Does he appreciate that many people in rural areas think that a committee should have studied this subject a long time ago? Will my right hon. Friend, therefore, give every facility and encouragement to the Committee to start its work and make a report at an early date?

Mr. Watkinson: I am glad that my hon. Friend has expressed his thanks. I would add mine to Professor Jack for taking on this very important job. I have said that the Committee will start work as soon as we have settled the rest of the membership, which I expect will happen quickly. I agree that the Committee has an important job to do. It will receive all help and encouragement from my Department.

Mr. Watkins: Will there be a representative from Wales on the Committee?

Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir, certainly.

Sir J. Duncan: How many people from Scotland are on the Committee?

Mr. Watkinson: I believe that Scotland has two representatives.

Drivers (Alcohol)

Mr. Bence: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will give a general direction to the British Transport Commission to prohibit the taking of alcohol by the drivers and firemen of locomotives of British Railways, and drivers of British Road Services, while on duty.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent): The British Railways Rule Book already provides that employees must not consume intoxicating liquor while on duty. Drivers of British Road Services vehicles are subject in the same way as other drivers to the law concerning driving vehicles while under the influence of drink. I do not think a general direction appropriate in a matter of this kind.

Mr. Bence: If it is good enough to say that pilots shall not have cocktail cabinet sets in their cockpits, and that locomotive drivers shall not have a


bottle of beer in their cabs, why is it that motorists in this country can drive around with cocktail sets in their cars and have a drink while driving?

Mr. Nugent: This Question does not refer to cocktail sets in motor cars, but I think the hon. Gentleman must keep a sense of proportion in this matter. I think it would be unreasonable to go further than the law does at present.

Driving Tests, Stockton-on-Tees

Mr. Chetwynd: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many additional examiners for driving tests have been appointed to the Middlesbrough Centre; and whether he will now establish a centre at Stockton-on-Tees to serve North Tees-side and relieve the congestion and delay at Middlesbrough.

Mr. Nugent: Two new examiners have accepted appointments at Middlesbrough and will start their training shortly. I think the needs of the district can best be served by stationing more examiners at the existing centre, and a further increase in examiners at Middlesbrough is planned.

Mr. Chetwynd: Can the Minister say why there is this difficulty in getting an adequate number of examiners at this centre? Is it due to the rates of pay being too low, or are the conditions of employment too stringent?

Mr. Nugent: There is no difficulty now that we have completed the first stage of the competition. As I say, two new examiners have been appointed and will be taking up their posts very shortly.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Select Committee on Estimates (Report)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what action he proposes to take on the recommendations of the Select Committee on Estimates on roads; and what consequential changes in the roads programme will be made.

Mr. Watkinson: The Report will be carefully studied and a detailed reply will be submitted to the Committee as soon as possible.

Mr. Davies: If the Report is now being studied and a detailed reply is to be submitted to the Committee, why did the Minister rush in and reject the Report before it had been given consideration? Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that the remarks he made in his two speeches at Hendon and at Stamford rejected the Committee's findings and were insulting to the members of that Committee?

Mr. Watkinson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman, because I would like to say this. There are two quite separate issues here. As to the relations between my Ministry and the Select Committee, we shall proceed strictly in accordance with the normal, conventional procedure, and the Committee has been so advised. Of course, the publication of the Report gave rise to widespread comment on the road programme as a whole. Whether that comment was in line with what the Committee intended I do not know, but it was certainly my job as Minister, in the light of the widespread comment arising from publication of the Report, to make the position of my Ministry quite clear, and I make no apology for that.

Mr. Peyton: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that if he had not made some statement on that occasion, bearing in mind the nature of the occasion and who was present, and as the subject concerned roads, the impression would have been highly misleading and he would have been taken as having no effective answer to the allegations, which indeed he has?

Mr. Watkinson: As my hon. Friend says, there are two issues here. As to the Select Committee, I have taken all the steps I can to ensure that the Select Committee is fully aware that I yield to no one in my respect for the House of Commons and its institutions but, as my hon. Friend has also said, the whole progress of the road programme could have been impeded if there had been a feeling that the widespread criticism of it in the Press as being improperly planned and executed might lead to broad changes in the scope of the programme. Tne speech I made was in front of contractors and local authorities actually engaged on the road programme. As I said before, I make no apology. It was my duty as Minister to make the position of my Ministry quite plain.

Mr. H. Morrison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that criticisms of Ministers by the Estimates Committee or the Public Accounts Committee have occurred before and Ministers have to put up with it? It is part of what they are paid for. Could not the Minister have let the thing take its ordinary course and be a bit patient? Further, is he aware that before this Ministers have had to wait before replying to the Committee? May I put it to the right hon. Gentleman that, since we have these Committees in the House of Commons, it is important that they should be treated with respect?
I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that instead of coming here and saying that he has nothing whatever to apologise for, would it not be better if he had a little Parliamentary docility and humility and said to the House of Commons that he is sorry he did what he did in the heat of the moment? [HON. MEMBERS: "He has."] He has not. No, Sir, with great respect, the Minister has said that if he has upset the Committee he is sorry about that, which is a different thing altogether. I ask him to say that he regrets that in the heat of the moment he got rather wild about it. If he did that, the House, which is the most forgiving institution on earth, would let him off.

Mr. Watkinson: There is not so much difference between the right hon. Gentleman and myself as he thinks. Last week, I took the earliest opportunity I had to say in the House of Commons that I was very sorry indeed if I had been in any way discourteous to the Committee. I have also taken further steps to make sure that the Committee is quite aware of my position.
What I am dealing with in this answer is not the relations between either myself, as Minister, or my Department and a Select Committee of this House, but a broad issue of general and fundamental policy of my Ministry which arose from the publication of the Report. I have said that it is certainly the duty of any Minister in that circumstance to make his position quite plain. May I add that I did exactly the same with regard to the Report of the Select Committee on the Air Corporations, when no comment was aroused in this House at all.

Dame Florence Horsbrugh: Does my right hon. Friend realise that there is a great difficulty here and that some of us who have been Ministers and have suffered under this procedure know it? It is that a report can come out with statements that might affect work going on at that time and those who are carrying it on, such as local authorities, wish to know about it. There is bound to be a considerable gap before the Department's reply can be published, so does not my right hon. Friend think it would be a better plan in the future if a new system could be evolved under which the Report would not be published before the Department received it, giving sufficient time for a reply from the Department to come out nearer the time when the Report comes out?

Mr. J. Griffiths: On a point of order, Sir. In circumstances of this kind, where a Committee set up by the House reports to the House and the Minister feels that the matter is so urgent that he cannot wait for the normal procedure of a departmental reply, would there not be a case in which the Minister could come to you, the Speaker of the House, and ask your permission and that of the House to make a statement? Would not that be a proper way to handle a matter of this kind?

Mr. Speaker: I do not wish to express an opinion one way or another on this controversy, but certainly if a Minister feels he wants to make a statement on a matter which concerns the public interest and the interest of his Department, in a proper case I would allow it.

Mr. Griffiths: Are we to take it. Sir, that you have received no such request?

Mr. Speaker: I have received no such request from anyone.

Sir G. Nicholson: On that point of order, Sir. Will you make it plain, if you agree, that once a Select Committee has reported the matter is public property and is a proper matter for public discussion? After all, it does not follow that the Department will send a reply; it may not wish to do so. Surely if the Report is public property, anybody—a Minister or a member of the general public—is entitled to comment on it?

Mr. Speaker: There is a good deal of weight in that.

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation for what reasons he departed from the normal procedure of replying to the First Report of the Select Committee on Estimates relating to trunk roads by making a statement to the House or by sending a memorandum containing his observations to the committee.

Mr. Watkinson: As in the case of the recent Report of the Select Committee on Nationalised Industries, widespread public comment was aroused by the publication of the Report. This comment whether in line with the Committee's report or not raised major policy issues.
It was therefore my duty to make the position of my Ministry quite plain on these issues at the earliest possible opportunity, not as a reply to the Committee but to ensure that the momentum of the road programme is not impeded. I have already expressed my regret, and I certainly express it again in the clearest possible terms, if the Committee thought me guilty of the slightest intentional discourtesy.

Mr. Davies: Is it not clear from that reply and from the earliest exchanges which have taken place that the Minister still does not regret the fact that he made this speech outside the House and that these so-called apologies which he has made are really those of a petulant child whose vanity has been offended? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Is it not a fact that he stated that this Report was misleading and inaccurate and that the Committee had given only cursory attention to consideration of the road programme? In those circumstances, is it not a matter for the House and not for speeches outside?

Mr. Watkinson: I do not take that very seriously, because the hon. Gentleman—I certainly do not accept the very misleading letter of his in The Times this morning—has been responsible for bringing into my Ministry the nicest and biggest lot of letters we have ever had while I have been Minister, on the whole saying, "Get on with the road programme, and good luck to you". So I have no complaint at all.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) will soon, after the General Election, have

to make all his speeches outside the House?

Accidents (Members)

Mr. P. Noel-Baker: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many right hon. and hon. Members of the House of Commons have died, and how many have been seriously injured, as the result of road accidents since 1945.

Mr. Nugent: According to my information, I regret to say that nine right hon. and hon. Members of the House of Commons have been killed in road accidents since 1945. I have no detailed information about the number of right hon. and hon. Members seriously injured in the same period.

Mr. Noel-Baker: Is the Joint Parliamentary Secretary aware that four of the deaths have occurred in the present Session and that there have been a great number of really serious injuries, both to Ministers and to other hon. Members on both sides of the House? Do not these facts show that road accidents are becoming a horrifying social evil, constantly increasing in gravity, and ought we not now to consider some new and imaginative measures to reduce the number of accidents?

Mr. Nugent: I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman that road accidents are a horrifying feature in our national life. We are continually studying new methods to try to reduce the numbers and control them, but it would be a complete mistake to think that there is any dramatic method which could suddenly cure the problem. It is a matter of gradually changing people's mental attitudes to the way they behave in motor cars, and it will be a long process.

Mr. Strauss: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that one hon. Member who was killed might not have been killed if the testing scheme which the Government have so much delayed putting into operation had been in existence?

Mr. Nugent: That is not quite the same point. We are most anxious to get on with the vehicle testing scheme as soon as we can. If what the right hon. Gentleman says is correct, of course I regret it.

Preston By-pass

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what report he has to make on the safety record of the Preston by-pass as compared with the old parallel road A.6.

Mr. Nugent: Up to the end of June roughly a millon vehicles used the Preston Motorway and there were six accidents involving personal injury.
During this period on the corresponding length of A.6 there were a further 51 accidents, compared with a total of 60 accidents there during the same period of the previous year for a similar density of traffic.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Do not the remarkable figures showing that there were only five accidents on the motorway in the last six months while there were fifty on the ordinary road give all of us encouragement to proceed with the programme for motorways and bring about greater safety?

Mr. Nngent: Yes, Sir; the rate of accidents on the motorway was a good deal better than elsewhere.

Sutton By-pass

Mr. Sharples: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he is yet in a position to announce his decision with regard to the imposition of a speed limit on the Sutton by-pass.

Mr. Nugent: We have already asked the Surrey County Council, as highway authority, to consider making certain improvements on this road. What is decided may affect the arguments for and against a speed limit; I will keep my hon. Friend in touch with developments.

Mr. Sharples: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that more than sixty people were either killed or injured on this stretch of road in the first six months of this year, and will he bear in mind the importance of reaching an early decision?

Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir; I will. I know that the accident record there is a bad one.

Queensferry Bridge

Mrs. White: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what is the

reason for the continued delay in making the Order under Section 1 (2) of the Trunk Roads Act, 1946, which is required before progress can be made with the Queensferry Bridge.

Mr. Nugent: The Order relating to the Queensferry By-pass and new bridge will be made within the next few weeks, but we are reconsidering the proposals for a diversion at Aston Hill as the result of objections to the original draft Order.

Mrs. White: Can the Minister explain why we cannot have the Order for the bridge now? Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the county council was informed in April that a separate order would be made for the bridge, that the bridge is most urgently necessary, that we have extreme traffic congestion there right through the summer months and that we have been waiting years for the bridge?

Mr. Nugent: I know that the hon. Lady is anxious that the work should start, but there were a number of objections, and we had to consider this matter in relation to the Aston Hill section and to decide whether or not there should be a public inquiry.

Mr. W. R. Williams: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that it is almost impossible effectively to arrange for the development of industries in North Wales unless something is done very quickly about the Queensferry Bridge, which is a real bottleneck—I only wish the hon. Gentleman could see it—not only on Bank Holidays but even on normal days?

Mr. Nugent: I know that it is a very bad one, but I am afraid that, like many other important proposals, it has to take its turn. We are getting on with the preparatory work as fast as we can, and we will bring it into the programme at the earliest possible date.

London-Yorkshire Motorway

Dr. Broughton: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what progress he has to report towards deciding the route of the London-Yorkshire motor road.

Mr. Wade: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what road development he has planned for facilitating the movement of traffic through


the West Riding of Yorkshire southwards and from South Yorkshire to the Great North Road, pending the completion of the London-Yorkshire motorway; and how soon such development will be completed.

Mr. Watkinson: As regards the line of the motorway through Leicestershire I cannot yet add to the reply that my hon. Friend gave to the hon. Member for Leicester, North-West (Mr. Janner) on 13th May when he explained that further consideration was being given to possible routes.
Because of the inevitable delay before the motorway can be extended into Yorkshire, we are putting in hand some supplementary road works to give the industrial West Riding better links to the modernised Great North Road.
As soon as the preparatory work can be completed, constructional work will be put in hand on the Seacroft by-pass at the eastern end of the Leeds Ring Road, and on the widening of A.63 between the Ring Road and the Great North Road. Some improvement on the A.57 route east of Sheffield will also be made. The work will be done as quickly as possible.

Dr. Broughton: Is the Minister aware that this long delay in starting the work of constructing this road is very disappointing to the people in that vitally important industrial area, the West Riding of Yorkshire? To add insult to injury, is he aware that we have learned that there is to be a postponement of the electrification of the main railway line? Why is Yorkshire neglected in this way?

Mr. Watkinson: I only deal with the road. The difficulty of getting a road through Leicestershire is just as frustrating to me as it is to the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Wade: Is the Minister aware of the serious traffic congestion in the West Riding of Yorkshire? Can he say how soon he will proceed with the motorway from Leeds to Sheffield which may be linked up with the London-Yorkshire motorway? Can he give an assurance that the Leeds-Sheffield motorway will not be delayed merely because of difficulties over the London-Yorkshire motorway?

Mr. Watkinson: The work of finding the line in Yorkshire and all the necessary preliminary work is going on. What I said today is that in the hope of helping Yorkshire over this very difficult interim period we are trying to link across into the new North Road which will give very rapid transit to the south.

Lane Discipline

Mr. Russell: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware that many motorists are not carrying out the rules of lane discipline laid down in the new Highway Code, but drive continuously in the right-hand lane of three-lane single-carriageways; and if he will make it mandatory for motorists to read the Code.

Mr. Nugent: Yes, Sir. I am aware that many drivers do not properly observe the rules of lane discipline. I am hoping for an improvement after the new Highway Code has become available, but I doubt if making the reading of the Code mandatory would automatically ensure observance of its rules.

Mr. Russell: Does not my hon. Friend agree that, although it would not automatically ensure observance, it would encourage people to observe the rule and make them aware of what is in the Highway Code? I am sure that some motorists are not aware of what is in it at the moment.

Mr. Nugent: I agree about the difficulty of getting people to read the Code, but I do not think that the mandatory approach is the right one.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that, unfortunately, the Highway Code does not tell drivers in ordinary three-line carriageways not to go into the right-hand lane; it confines that injunction to special motor roads? Will my hon. Friend do something to dispel that false assumption?

Mr. Nugent: It tells drivers to keep to the left.

Oral Answers to Questions — RAILWAYS

Withdrawal of Services (Alternative Transport)

Sir S. Summers: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (1) when referring to the Transport


Users' Consultative Committee cases where the closing of stations would deprive the travelling public of any form of public transport, whether he will in every instance request them to consider the feasibility of providing alternative omnibus transport;

(2) whether he will give a general direction to the British Transport Commission to ensure that omnibuses are provided in all cases where the closing of railway stations by the Commission would deprive the travelling public of any form of public transport.

Mr. Watkinson: The British Transport Commission itself always refers proposals to withdraw services or close stations to the Transport Users' Consultative Committee and the committees invariably take into account the existence of alternative services or the need for them.
Although the Commission is under no obligation to provide alternative services, Sir Brian Robertson has already assured me that it is willing to co-operate fully with the consultative committees in exploring how the needs of the public affected by the withdrawal of railway services can best be met. I do not therefore think a general direction from me would be appropriate.

Sir S. Summers: I was not able to hear the earlier part of my right hon. Friend's Answer. Can he say whether it contained any reference to the sphere of interest which the consultative committee has in this matter? There appears to be some doubt. If there is doubt, will he take steps to ensure that when these cases are referred to the consultative committee it is regarded as perfectly proper for the committee to discuss with the British Transport Commission the provision of buses instead of rail services?

Mr. Watkinson: I beg my hon. Friend's pardon for being inaudible, but the first part of my Answer said that it is clearly part of the duty of a consultative committee to look into the question of what alternative services are available, to discuss that both with the British Transport Commission and with bus companies and any other interests involved, and to do its very best to see that these services are not withdrawn until it is satisfied that there is a reasonable alternative.

Mr. Snow: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be a large measure of support for the proposition put forward by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Sir S. Summers)? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I am at present in correspondence with him on precisely the same matter in so far as there is a bad time-lag between the original publication of an intention to close a station and any form of publicity as to what the Traffic Commissioners, for example, are doing in the matter of providing alternative motor transport, and that this causes extreme anxiety for people who have to commute to their work, and may indeed affect their livelihood and their ability to get to work on time?

Mr. Watkinson: The matter is, I imagine, relevant to our later discussions. I should like to say that I am just as worried about it as many other hon. Members. The problem of pruning the railway service, which is inevitable, and yet providing some alternative, particularly in rural areas, is a very worrying one indeed, but I hope that Professor Jack and his Rural Transport Committee may help us with advice in this matter.

Newbury-Lambourn Line (Closure)

Sir A. Hurd: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will refer for consideration to the appropriate Transport Users Consultative Committee, under Section 6 (7) of the Transport Act, 1947, the proposal for closing the Newbury-Lambourn branch railway for passenger traffic, with special reference to the possibility of providing an alternative service by omnibus from Newbury station.

Mr. Nugent: This proposal has already been submitted to the Transport Users Consultative Committee for the South Eastern Area by the Western Region of British Railways. The Committee will, I am sure, take into account any suggestions about alternative services without a reference from us.

Sir A. Hurd: Is my hon. Friend satisfied that the procedure of the Transport Users Consultative Committee under the Transport Act, 1947, is working satisfactorily when it is a matter of safeguarding local interests? Some of us


have doubts about it. Has my hon. Friend noticed the letter in The Times this morning stating that out of 118 cases, 116 were rubber-stamped by the Transport Users Consultative Committee, and does it not seem doubtful whether it is an effective body to safeguard local interests?

Mr. Nugent: No, Sir; I would not accept for a minute that the Transport Users Consultative Committee is simply rubber-stamping proposals by the Commission. It has a most difficult job to do, and I think that it does it very conscientiously and fairly in the public interest.

Leicester-London Services

Mr. Janner: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what will be the effect of the rationalisation proposals contained in the re-appraisal of the plan for railway modernisation and re-equipment, Command Paper No. 813, on the passenger rail services between Leicester and London on the former Great Central line and otherwise.

Mr. Nugent: The Re-appraisal Report describes the Commission's proposals for the Great Central line from Marylebone to Nottingham and for diesel traction on the main lines from St. Pancras. The Commission informs me that modernisation will greatly improve main line services between London and Leicester.

Mr. Janner: Is the Minister aware that it is proposed, or suggested, that there should be a reduction in the service between London and Leicester in the new traffic proposals? Is he aware that, although his colleague has refused to give adequate roads for transport, the Minister is now adding insult to injury by stopping some train services to Leicester?

Mr. Nugent: This proposal is nothing to do with us. It is a proposal by the British Transport Commission. It has not yet been before the Transport Users' Consultative Committee, and I am not, therefore, able to discuss the merits of it. The hon. Gentleman must wait until the proposal goes through the normal procedure.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS (UNITED KINGDOM - UNITED STATES AGREEMENT)

Mr. G. Brown: Mr. G. Brown (by Private Notice) asked the Minister of Defence whether he will give the terms of the Agreement made between the United Kingdom and the United States of America, which binds this country to a specific rocket or nuclear weapon policy, and for what period such an Agreement applies

The Minister of Defence (Mr. Duncan Sandys): There are no such agreements apart from the Agreement of February, 1958, under which Her Majesty's Government undertook to deploy and man Thor rockets supplied by the United States. This arrangement is subject to revision by agreement at any time, and can be terminated by either party at the end of five years. In accordance with the normal procedure, the text of this Agreement (Command Paper 366) was laid before Parliament.

Mr. Brown: I thank the Minister for that reply, which confirms the position as we understood it, namely, that we would be free, in the light of changes, if there were any technical, political or international—to seek a revision of the Agreement. Can the Minister say why it should be reported in The Times and in other newspapers this morning that a Ministry of Defence spokesman, early this morning, said that these commitments—in connection with Thor rockets—are absolutely binding upon the next Government, whether it be Labour or Tory? Can he explain why it was necessary to issue such a statement? In view of the fact that the wording of the newspaper reports is so different from that of the Agreement and the announcement he has just made, what was the point of the whole operation?

Mr. Sandys: When people are asked questions by the Press they do not always answer in the most felicitous manner. I do not think that there was anything inaccurate in what was said. I think that the official concerned gave the policy in the terms of the Agreement, and that was that. I do not think that he intended to convey any other meaning. If the right hon. Gentleman is alarmed at the possibility of a Labour Government becoming responsible for these undertakings, I would remind him that they last only for


five years, so I do not think there is much danger of that.

Mr. Brown: That is the whole point. The Minister always seems to have that up his sleeve, and that is what makes us feel that we have to check every statement by his Department against his own private announcements. I am prepared to believe that he was his better self in his earlier answer, and I will accept that.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Proceedings on the Motion in the name of Mr. Langford-Holt relating to Dingle v. Associated Newspapers Limited exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House).—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (ANNUAL REPORT)

3.35 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of the Report and Accounts of the British Transport Commission for 1958 and of the Report reappraising the Plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways (Command Paper No. 813).
This year's debate on the British Transport Commission's Annual Report for 1958 has a special interest for us because it is combined with a consideration of the Commission's reappraisal of the modernisation plan which it orginally sketched out four years ago. The reappraisal was set in hand last autumn, following a forecast by the Commission that the 1958 results were likely to finish up about £30 million worse than was originally predicted. It is right to put it on record that at that time the chairman of the Commission, Sir Brian Robertson, consulted my right hon. Friend on the matter. My right hon. Friend asked him to make a reappraisal of the modernisation plan in the light of the changed conditions, and the exchange of letters between my right hon. Friend and the Chairman appeared in Cmd. Paper No. 585 last November.
The 1958 Report shows that the deficit for the year was £89 million, and confirms that the forecast given last autumn was justified. I do not think that the House will want me to take up time in rehearsing in detail the causes of that decline. We have debated them before, and I think that we are all familiar with them. They are summed up in the words in the Report, at the end of paragraph 5, which says:
So far as it is possible to analyse the deficit of the year it might be said that some £55 million of it could have been expected as part of the process of deficit financing leaving the balance due mainly to the decline in the traffics of the heavy industries and to the effects of the London bus strike.
But although 1958 was a year of setback in finance it was also a year of great progress in mechanical and engineering development as the Report records. Indeed, our own eyes now confirm it wherever we go throughout the country on our rail services. I should


like to say a word of praise to the Commission and to the railwaymen, from top to bottom, for the tremendous job that they are carrying out in modernising services and, at the same time, keeping them operating. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am happy to hear how well that statement is received by the House.
During 1958 we substantially increased the Commission's capital investment ceiling from £150 million to £175 million, to help the Commission accelerate the modernisation plan, especially in motive power, and to bring in more diesel locomotives. It is part of our general policy to get more modernisation more quickly. In the rail passenger traffic picture for 1958 there is a marginal reduction in gross receipts of about £1 million, from just under £139 million to about £138 million. In fact, however, the trend of passenger traffics since 1955 has been steadily upwards. The year 1957 showed an exceptional rise, when there was the exceptional circumstance of the fuel shortage, but even allowing for that, the trend has been upwards, and it shows clearly that modernisation is beginning to have its effect in passenger transport.
We can see the attractions in diesel main line locomotives which, apart from looking very attractive, are able to provide better time-keeping. We can also see diesel multiple units wherever we go, and are now beginning to see some of the new electrification schemes and even, in some places, new stations and better passenger accommodation—generally a foretaste of what is to come in a fully modernised rail service. It is good, there is no question about that, and the travelling public like it. Obviously, it is being appreciated wherever it has been done.
The passenger traffics have kept up for the first twenty-eight weeks of 1959 at almost exactly the same figure as in the corresponding period of 1958, and that despite exceptionally good weather and the ever-increasing wave of the universal motor car offering alternative means of transport. So, where they have managed to modernise, the railways are evidently succeeding in offering services attractive enough to hold their passengers, and possibly to increase their number.
I had the privilege of inaugurating the North Kent electrification scheme a short time ago. It is a wonderful scheme for the benefit of the commuting public and

Sir Brian Robertson told me that on the lengths and at the stations where electrification has been carried out already there has been a 20 per cent. to 30 per cent. increase in traffics. This is most encouraging and many similar schemes are coming along.
The freight picture is not so good. It shows the decline we expected and in the event it was about £30 million down on the year. But behind that financial result there has been an immense amount of work going on in the complex and difficult process of modernising freight services. The House will know that last year about 35 per cent. of all freight-train mileage was done by express brake-fitted trains. That is a tremendous increase on anything done before and will result in faster, more attractive and more competitive services. The Commission has closed 270 goods depots and yards and this concentration into fewer modernised depots is an essential part of the modernising of our freight services. The modernisation of marshalling yards continues, but, inevitably, it is a long and a slow job.
The current freight rates during the year show that the railways were fully competitive—and some complaints which we have received from the road haulage interests seem to confirm this. I think-that we may say that the railways held their share of the lower total freights that were going in 1958.
The Report also refers to the big programme of track improvements, the modernisation of signalling with a colour-light system, the introduction of automatic train control and many other improvements. It reveals the major fact, by which we set great store, that the Commission has managed to achieve the level of economies which my right hon. Friend and I asked of it. We asked for a saving of £20 million in the year. In the event, the net saving for the year was £9 million. If we take into account increased costs due to wage awards and other increases, amounting to £13 million, it shows that there was a theoretical gross saving of £22 million, on which the Commission is to be congratulated. I shall not have time to comment in detail on the many other interesting points in the Report before leaving it to say a few words upon the reappraisal.

Mr. David Jones: Will the hon. Gentleman give the House some information about savings? He said that in 1958 the saving which had been promised had been accomplished, but on 11th December the Minister suggested that, in addition, the Commission had been asked to save another £30 million in 1959. Can the hon. Gentleman say something about that?

Mr. Nugent: It is too early to give any details about that, but I do not doubt that when this year's working is completed the Commission will again show a substantial saving. Naturally, I cannot at this stage say what it will amount to, but I have no doubt that it will be substantial.
Before leaving the Report I wish to make reference to the London Transport Executive and, first, to record our thanks to Sir John Elliot, who has left the Executive after long and distinguished service, and to extend my best wishes to his successor, Mr. Valentine.
I should like to mention the Victoria Line tube, which is referred to in paragraphs 127 and 128 of the Report. On a number of occasions I have been asked when we should receive the Report from the London Travel Committee and I am glad to say that it was given to my right hon. Friend yesterday by the chairman of the Committee, Mr. Alex Samuels. The Report broadly recommends the building of the Victoria Line as a useful addition to London's transport facilities in any circumstances, and we shall take an early opportunity of studying the Report with Sir Brian Robertson and considering its implications.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: Will it be published?

Mr. Nugent: Yes. it will be published as soon as it can be printed. It is a surprisingly long document.
I wish now to turn to the reappraisal and to begin by thanking the chairman of the Commission and his colleagues for undertaking this magnum opus for us. It is a considerable work, as right hon. and hon. Members will appreciate when they read it. My right hon. Friend and I welcome the opportunity afforded by this debate to hear the views of hon. Members and we shall take them into account in our future studies of the reappraisal.
The Report is the product of an immense amount of work not only by the Commission but in the regions. It provides a valuable basis for assessing the future prospects of the railways. It is in three parts: a report on progress of the modernisation plan up to the end of 1958, a description of the plans of the Commission for the next five years and a forecast of the financial outlook. It confirms that the modernisation plan of 1955 was broadly right in outline, but it recommends that over the next four years there should be a rapid acceleration in re-equipment, especially in motive power from steam to electricity and diesel, in the wagon fleet and coaching stock, and a speeding up in the general process of rationalisation and streamlining of the railways to meet modern conditions.
Under this plan, the greater part of what was originally intended to take place by 1970 will be done by 1963, so that a very rapid acceleration is visualised. Paragraph 56 tells us that there will actually be less equipment in use in 1963 under the plan than would still have been in use in 1970 under the original plan. If this can be achieved, the Commission predicts that by 1963 there will be a working surplus of between £50 million and £100 million against central charges of about £85 million.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Is the hon. Gentleman proposing to return to the question of electrification? He mentioned it en passant, but is he proposing to tell the House a little more about it in view of the tremendous changes in voltages and the various decisions arrived at by the Commission? Will he give the reasons?

Mr. Nugent: I am not clear what the hon. Gentleman is asking. Is he asking whether electrification is proceeding on the present plan?

Mr. Hobson: The hon. Gentleman has made a general statement about electrification. There is quite a bit about electrification in the reappraisal, including the advocation of some rather costly changes. Surely he proposes to say something about that.

Mr. Nugent: I see nothing to dissent from in the general plan which the Commission outlines for electrification and


dieselisation. It all seems to me to go in the right direction to give us a very efficient, modernised service. If the hon. Member has a different view I shall be interested to hear it, if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, in the course of the debate.
I was about to observe that the prospect of solvency in 1963, now predicted by the Commission, is roughly a year or so behind its original prediction that it would achieve solvency by 1961–62. After making this comprehensive reappraisal, considering all the work that lies behind this document, the Commission has, I think, made a very courageous prediction. Sir Brian Robertson and his colleagues are to be congratulated upon putting forward a forecast which they firmly believe they can carry out.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: The Commission's Report suggests that a £50 million to £100 million surplus might be achieved by 1963, but surely that is on the assumption that production continues to rise by 2 per cent. or 3 per cent. every year. I believe that the difficulty of the Commission is that the production position is more or less stabilised and is not rising at that level. Perhaps the Minister might mention this point, as it is a cardinal one in the Commission's prediction.

Mr. Nugent: I am assuming that hon. Members have read the Report. I am not going through the Report detail by detail. It will be a comfort to the hon. Gentleman to know that industrial production is rising and that the prospect of that surplus being achieved is reasonably hopeful.
A number of important issues raised by reappraisal cannot be answered by the Government without a great deal of study. This study we are proceeding to do now with the Commission, so that we can reach conclusions on the many important questions that there are.
On the major issue of modernisation, I can be quite clear. The Government see nothing in this Report to deter them from maintaining their general policy of supporting the Commission in completing the modernisation of the railways. Perhaps the outlook is less promising than it was, but we are still convinced that this country needs a rail service and needs it modernised as

quickly as possible. We believe that the prospect now given is firm enough to build on.
Here, perhaps I might say to hon. Gentlemen on the Liberal benches—[HON. MEMBERS: "One."]—that this answers the aspect raised in the Amendment which they have on the Order Paper. Inevitably, there are anxieties and risks in committing such large sums of money as this for the modernisation of the railways. There are all kinds of uncertainties in the picture, but we take the view that a railway service, and a modernised one, is essential to the life of the country.
On the prospect which the Commission has put before us we should press on and get that modernisation done. That, therefore, is the background of our financial appreciation. Conscious of the anxieties and risks, we still feel that the prospect justifies us in going ahead. Although the deficit, is now running at a higher level than was originally predicted, I would remind hon. Members that we always expected that the deficit would increase before it began to fall.
Now I turn to some of the major aspects of reappraisal and would say a word on passenger traffic. The reappraisal forecasts a 15 per cent. increase by 1963. That is, of course, a big increase, but it still seems possible. Modernisation of the the passenger service is undoubtedly attracting considerably increased traffics wherever it has been introduced, whether by electrification or dieselisation. I have referred to the North Kent electrification scheme, because I have been associated with it personally, but there are many other schemes with which we are all familiar and where there have been quite dramatic increases. So it seems that a modernised service has a potential which may well cause that forecast of the Commission's to mature.
As commuter traffics improve, whether by electrification or dieselation, they will increase the radius of commuter travel. That, again, will cause some people to use the service from an even bigger radius. With the increasing prosperity of the community and, therefore, the greater use of transport, it seems a fair prospect that this considerable increase will be reached at the end of four years.

Mr. D. Jones: I am sorry to interrupt the Parliamentary Secretary again, but I do not quite follow his argument. He says that where lines have been modernised and electrified the amount of traffic has considerably increased. Then why close so many branch lines? Why not electrify them?

Mr. Nugent: The hon. Gentleman will realise why these closures are being made. Wherever there is any prospect of increasing traffic to the point of profitability, the Commission is modernising. It has to take a view whether there is a potential there. On many of these branch lines there is no prospect whatsoever of attracting traffic ever to make a profit, and it then has no alternative but to close down the line.
I would say a word on the Commission's view of fares. Not only does it expect an increase in the volume of passenger traffic, but it expects increased returns because of increased fares. The Transport Tribunal has now approved new ceilings, and the Commission is considering what actual revision it should make. The Commission clearly recognises, in the reappraisal, that it is dealing in a sensitive market here, because of the competition of the motor car, and it evidently intends a cautious approach.
We have asked the Commission to do all that is possible to design a fare structure to give an incentive to spread the peak of daily commuter traffic. Anything it can do in that direction will be good not only for the economics of the railways, but enormously for the comfort of the travelling public. The Commission has undertaken to do its best in that matter.
I will now turn to freight traffic.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: Before the Parliamentary Secretary leaves passenger questions, may I ask whether he is aware of the very small increase in the rates of passenger traffic fares over many years? I remember going, as a small boy, from Liverpool to London, when my return fare was 33s. That was before the First World War. Today, the fare is 65s. I defy anybody to point to any oommodity that has gone up in price by only that proportion since 1914.

Mr. Nugent: The Commission has developed its argument in detail in the

paragraphs with which I dealt, and I think that it makes out a strong argument for its point of view.
I turn to freight traffics. The Commission expects in its reappraisal that freights will recover to the 1957 level by 1963 and that the increases on minerals and merchandise will balance the expected fall in coal traffic. That, again, is a stiff target that it has undertaken.
Hon. Members will have seen that before making this forecast the Commission, in addition to its own very thorough and careful studies throughout the regions, has consulted the Coal Board and other nationalised boards and also the Iron and Steel Federation, the F.B.I., the N.U.M. and the A.B.C.C., as set out in paragraphs 66 and 67 and subsequently. It is evident that the Commission, in making these forecasts—both of freight and passenger traffics—has made a most exhaustive and careful study of the prospects and taken into account all possible information and expert opinion
In reading those paragraphs I felt the Commission had argued cogently to support its case. My right hon. Friend and and I accept this as a fair basis on which to work. The tunnel of darkness through which we must go is a little longer than we thought and perhaps the light is not so bright at the end, but it is still there to be seen. I think that we must accept it as what The Times calls it, a challenging Report.
The Commission has also asked for an increased rate of capital spending for the next four years. This year the capital expenditure ceiling is £212 million. It is by far the highest it has ever been. For the railways, it is £178 million, which is a very big increase of £30 million over last year, but the Commission ask for next year an extra £9 million, rising to an extra £32 million for railways alone in the coming years. I can only say, at this stage that we will give very careful attention to the programme which has been put before us. The public reception of the reappraisal was, on the whole, favourable, both in the newspapers and in public comment. Some anxiety, perhaps, about the financial prospects and some about the closure of uneconomic services has been expressed, but there is evidently general approval


by the public for our policy of modernising the railways.
I come to the Amendment put down by the Opposition, which,
… while welcoming the progress being made in the modernisation and re-equipment of the railways, regrets the actions of Her Majesty's Government which have damaged the financial solvency of the British Transport Commission and led to the curtailment in the services it should render in the national interest.
It really is astonishing to me to see this hostile attack on the Government for damaging the financial solvency of the Commission. In fact, it is only in this House, by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, that my right hon. Friend and I are attacked and accused of pursuing policies which injure the railways. There is no echo of these charges outside. The country as a whole is very pleased that we are providing the basis for this modernisation. The anxiety, so far as it exists, is rather the reverse of that—that we may be giving them too much. With no backing to it from public opinion, the charge is really a synthetic one, manufactured to give a basis for crabbing the outstanding success of the policies of my right hon. Friend.
Over the current four years the capital expenditure that has been provided for the Commission has been £568 million. If we add to that the £227 million to date for deficit financing, that gives an average rate of spending on the Commission of nearly £200 million a year over these four years. We can compare that with the rate of spending during the Labour Administration in the four years from 1948 to 1951, in which they were responsible, of £53 million per annum.

Mr. D. Jones: There were not deficits then.

Mr. Nugent: It does not surprise me that I get objections from hon. Members opposite, because, naturally, this is not welcome to them, but I am certain that if the Labour Government had been able to raise the rate of capital expenditure and financial provision for the railways even to half the present rate of spending that there would have been paeans of praise by hon. Members opposite for what they were doing for the railways—paeans of praise for themselves. Now that we are doing it, we get this crabbing from them and a thoroughly dog-in-the-manger attitude.
I recognise that a horse coming out of their stable with "Transport House" over the door has a natural jealousy for his tradition as champion of the "Railway Stakes". But he cuts an undignified figure when he retires to the stable and sits in the manger. He certainly will not hold the championship in any stakes; in fact, he has probably lost it to us already.
The right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss), in his speech last December on the Second Reading of the Transport (Borrowing Powers) Bill, evidently seeking to minimise the importance of the massive financing of the modernisation scheme, said that any Government would have to go on providing the money for modernising the railways today. That is true only if the Government have the capital resources available. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite did not finance the modernisation of the railways in their day. I should imagine that it was because they did not have the financial resources available. It is useless to say that this is simply a matter of years. They governed according to their political beliefs and the result was that the nation's earning power was restricted. The nation's earning power has expanded in the last four years under good Tory Government. [An HON. MEMBER: "There was the war."] I am not aware of any war between 1948 and 1951.
The fact is that today the modernisa tion scheme is able to go forward because this Conservative Government has been following sound financial policies which have caused national earning power to grow so that capital formation could also grow. Therefore, there is more for the railways. The Opposition must not be allowed to obscure the magnitude of the achievement by the Government. The Opposition have decided to divide the House tonight—

Mr. C. R. Hobson: How does the hon. Gentleman know?

Mr. Nugent: The Opposition put a hostile Amendment on the Order Paper in the names of their leaders, but perhaps the hon. Member who interrupted knows better. If arguments will convince the hon. Member, he will be very easily convinced, for the arguments are


all on our side and there is only party doctrine on the other.
The hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) has given us some indication in the past of his ideas on future policy for the railways. I hope that we are going to hear a very full explanation today. If hon. and right hon. Members opposite put down a hostile Amendment let them describe how they would carry on the programme for the future. What the hon. Member has told us before is that his party would renationalise road haulage and control C licences. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am glad to hear some support for that, but we have heard about this pipe dream of integration before and have never seen it. I hope that the hon. Member will go into more detail and tell us how it is to be brought about
The more the hon. Member talks about it the better we shall be pleased, because it will find no favour in the country. Already, the nation has voted twice to show that it will not have it. Obviously, it is determined to do so for a third time, so I hope that hon. Members opposite will give us a very full dissertation on the subject. [Interruption.] I am not surprised that hon. Members opposite do not like this, because it is near the bone.
I acknowledge that nationalisation of road haulage would give the railways a short-term advantage because, of course, that would clip the wings of road haulage and give a share of its present traffics to the railways. But even that advantage would be brief, because the record shows quite clearly that a Government committed to policies of nationalisation will quickly be in financial disaster again. Then there will not be the capital resources to modernise the railways at all. [Laughter.] I make that point with all the force I can. Right hon. and hon. Members opposite are very unwise to laugh at it. If they try their hand again at government they will quickly find their difficulties of maintaining the earning power of the nation. The prospect of modernising the railways on the lines which right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite have indicated are obviously very thin.
I want to make one remark about controlling C licences. In the interim Report we have had the benefit of the

survey on C licences, a most valuable and interesting document, and it refutes the allegation that this class of vehicle is operated inefficiently. That completely knocks the bottom out of the case of the hon. Member for Enfield, East, and there is no wonder that he keeps denigrating it. He has tried to reduce its authority by saying that it is a biased document. It is nothing of the kind. It was composed by statisticians, completely independently. In fact, one of them was the joint author of the 1952 Report. This is the time-honoured tactic of the courts: "Weak brief, abuse your opponent's attorney".

Mr. Popplewell: Is this a Departmental Report? If so, will it be published?

Mr. G. R. Strauss: It has been published.

Mr. Popplewell: This is new. I have not seen it. Will the Minister tell us where we can get it?

Mr. Nugent: It has been published and I think that it can be obtained from the Stationery Office T shall be pleased to let the hon. Member have a copy. He will find it most enlightening and very helpful in resolving his policy.
Coming back to the reappraisal, I want particularly to deal with a point raised by the hon. Member for The Hartlepools (Mr. D. Jones) earlier—the major problem of the rationalisation of the railway system. The Report is quite emphatic that there must be a more rapid closing of uneconomic services. I refer hon. Members to paragraphs 18 to 30 of the Report. This is not an initiative which comes from the Government. This is the carefully judged opinion of the expert railwaymen. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House know very well that the railway system as it exists today was laid out in circumstances completely different from the present, when the railways were virtually a monopoly and when the only form of competition was the "penetrating lines' duplicating existing services, which worsen our problem today and make an even bigger railway network with which we have to deal.
The reappraisal is quite definite that what should be contemplated in the coming four years is a much more radical rationalisation than we have seen in the last four years. The view is taken that


many of these services can never be economic. I think that we ought to trust the judgment of the railwaymen in this matter. It has not been uncommon to hear from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite charges against us that we interfere with the Commission. Here is an issue on which hon. Members should take their own advice. This is the Commission's initiative, and we should proceed on this plan of eliminating uneconomic services. The Commission forecast that about 10 per cent. of the total route mileage should be closed down over the coming four years.
Where these are passenger services, inevitably when they are closed it inconveniences the few remaining travellers who are using them. I know this situation probably better than most, because I have to answer many Adjournment debates initiated by hon. Members on both sides of the House who are anxious about some proposed closure or closures in their constituencies. I also receive delegations on the subject, and I sympathise most sincerely with those remaining travellers who still use the service which the Commission proposes to close.

Mr. Tom Brown: May I put a question about the closure of lines in rural districts? Will the Department be prepared to take note of local authorities who make representations to it that it is inadvisable, in the interests of the inhabitants of that rural district, to close a certain railway?

Mr. Nugent: There is provision in the 1947 Act for transport users' consultative committees to consider proposals for closing any section and to hear the objections of local authorities and others who are interested in it. That procedure is followed in every case. I have looked into many of these cases in detail. The difficulty in most of them is that the services are hopelessly unecomonic.
The hon. Member for The Hartle-pools, who knows the railway service better than I do, knows perfectly well that in many cases there is no prospect in the world of ever making the service profitable. The potential is just not there. Naturally, because the services are there, somebody uses them, and it is, therefore, an inconvenience when they are closed. Wherever there is any

prospect of the Commission developing a service by modernising it, the Commission certainly does so.
The transport users' consultative committees are bodies which hear objections. They have a most onerous task to perform. They were set up under the 1947 Act, and they represent local authorities, industry, the farming industry trade union interests and others and are directly representative of user interests. They have the very difficult task of hearing objections and, in the majority of cases, of hearing an overwhelming case for closing a particular section of railway. They would very much like to be able to help the people who will be affected, but they simply cannot find a case for advising the Commission to keep the section open. I want to say a word of thanks to the members of these committees for carrying out a very difficult task.

Sir James Duncan: There is one other body of people on these transport users' consultative committees, and that is the British Transport Commission itself. Would not my hon. Friend look into the matter and consider whether the committees would not be regarded as more independent if the British Transport Commission's officials and members were not members of them?

Mr. Nugent: There are only two members of the Transport Commission on a body of 20. I do not think that it can be said that they are dominating it. It is helpful to have them as members so that they can supply the facts on many of the problems which come before the committees. I think that the composition of the Committees is about right.
The closure of goods depôts is a very important part of rationalisation and is going ahead fast, to concentrate freight handling in the modernised goods depôts, and here the problems are very-much less. There is the problem of manpower, but no problems for the travelling public.
This part of modernisation, this rationalisation, cannot be done completely painlessly. It is impossible to do it without inconvenience to some people in some places. It is, nevertheless, an essential part of what the railways must


do if we are to have a modernised system which will meet today's needs at economic rates and be consistent with the Commission's statutory obligation, laid down in the 1947 Act, that it should break even, taking one year with another, and should achieve solvency. My right hon. Friend and I therefore broadly support the Commission in its difficult operation. We shall look with the Commission at the great acceleration which it proposes and see what are the implications of such a wide range of closures.
In this context, the Commission refers, in paragraph 62, to its obligations of public interest in maintaining services, which run alongside its obligations to operate as a commercial undertaking. We shall look at this factor and at the Commission's proposals for completely uneconomic services, together.
The reappraisal also asks that the financial structure should be looked at afresh. The Commission has made the point that, although it is far from a monopoly operator today, it does not have the normal capital structure of competitive business. It has no equity-capital to give flexibility by covering the fluctuations of good times and bad times. Ii finds the single burden of fixed-interest charges a handicap. My right hon. Friend and I do not know what Sir Brian Robertson has in mind on this, but we shall be prepared to give very careful consideration to any ideas that he puts forward. Before considering shifting from the present structure of central charges with a straight obligation to repay interest and capital, we must be sure that it will strengthen financial discipline and accountability, rather than the reverse.
Despite Opposition strictures on the test of profitability, it is still the most reliable test to show whether a concern is making full economic use of the resources of manpower and capital at its disposal, in terms not only of its own management, but of serving the nation as a whole.
I certainly do not contend that the present structure is ideal. It may be that we can think of something better, and I shall be interested to hear what the Liberal view is today in supporting their Amendment. I read with interest the comment in one of the national dailies—

I think that it was the Financial Times—that while deficits are running at such a high level accountability is unsatisfactory. It was suggested that a clearer picture would emerge with regional accountability. There are technical and accounting difficulties in this suggestion, but it may be possible to overcome them.
We will certainly include that as a feature of the study we are now undertaking. It is in line with our general policy to increase regional responsibility and autonomy. This is already showing excellent results. If this can be done and if it will help, we will consider it favourably.
I will now refer briefly to the manpower aspect in the reappraisal. I would not for one moment underestimate the huge problems presented in the manpower field. The Commission makes it clear that the human problem involved in the modernisation scheme, and especially in the acceleration, is a vast one. Last year the total manpower on the railways was reduced by 23,000, from about 573,000 to about 550,000. This kind of reduction in the total establishment on the railways will continue. Indeed, it may even be accelerated.
The Commission is to be congratulated on the general spirit of co-operation, that it has managed with the help of the trade unions, to secure, in dealing with this very difficult problem of reducing the number of jobs, having to switch men from one job to another, and, indeed, in the last resort, of redundancies. As the House knows, the Commission has concluded a redundancy agreement with the trade unions concerned, and that is brought into operation wherever necessary. It consults the trade unions wherever there is a change or a reduction to be made.
I know that many hon. Members are very concerned about the Commission's policy on workshops. I shall not go into that in detail now. I am sure that hon. Members interested will make speeches on that. My right hon. Friend and I have had representations from hon. Members on both sides of the House about both the railway workshops and the private workshops. We have been told by hon. Members on both sides that both of these are being treated more favourably than the other. [HON. MEMBERS: "They are."] They cannot both be


This is entirely a matter of management for the Commission, but my right hon. Friend and I have discussed this with the Chairman of the British Transport Commission. He issued a public statement on the subject last May which, broadly, maintained the policy on workshops which the Commission was previously following. I say with all confidence that I am sure that the Commission is holding a fair balance between the interests of railway workshops and the interests of private workshops.
The huge reductions in equipment which are going on—for instance, the predicted reduction in wagon equipment from over 1 million wagons to about 750,000 wagons by the end of 1963—are bound completely to alter the picture, especially when the wooden wagon is eliminated and the all-steel wagon comes in, which will mean that wagon repairing will practically disappear. I agree that some very hard cases result from that. With the rapid disappearance of the steam locomotive, which was constructed almost entirely in the railway workshops, and with the alternatives of the diesel and electric motor units, where the power units are supplied from outside, the picture of what the workshops have to do is changing.
The Commission has done all that it can to mitigate the difficulties these changes bring about, and it will continue to do so. I want my congratulations to the Commission to extend to the trade union leaders who have played such a responsible and helpful part in this difficult problem.

Mr. Popplewell: Is the House to understand from what the Parliamentary Secretary says that the workshop policy is left entirely in the hands of the Commission? If the Commission desires to produce diesel and electric motor power component parts, is it entitled to do so? Is it entirely in the Commission's hands. Do I understand, also, that the question of wagon repair and building jobs is left entirely to the Commission? For instance, instead of the Commission hiving off to private industry the building of London Transport coaches and wagons, can it build these wagons itself if it so determines?

Mr. Nugent: I think that I had better send the hon. Member a copy of the Commission's statement on this. The

broad answer is that the Commission is free to work out its own policy on these matters. It must live within its capital expenditure and it must also be guided by economic considerations. That is precisely what it does in deciding whether to use private industry or its own resources for any of these particular supplies.
I have already spoken for longer than I intended, and I wish to bring my remarks to a close. The reappraisal gives us a half-term report of the progress of the modernisation plan and a forecast of a large measure of its completion in the next four years. We can sound a note of satisfaction at the stage of modernisation already reached. It is ahead of schedule. But this satisfaction must be tinged with caution in the face of the evident stiffening of the struggle to hold and, even more so, increase traffics. Nevertheless, the forecast justifies the Government in continuing to give the Commission full support in the great task of modernisation. Our policy is to go on to achieve the great benefits which this will bring to the life of our people. I confidently ask the House to approve the Motion.

4.30 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Davies: I beg to move, at the end of the Question to add:
and while welcoming the progress being made in the modernisation and re-equipment of the railways, regrets the actions of Her Majesty's Government which have damaged the financial solvency of the British Transport Commission and led to the curtailment in the services it should render in the national interest".
In the first third of his speech the Joint Parliamentary Secretary dealt with the results of 1958 and paid tribute to the British Transport Commission. We certainly share those thoughts—we have no quarrel whatsoever with him there—but when he came to the middle part of his speech he certainly jumped the track and made some rather naive comments on our Amendment.
I want to make it quite clear that in putting this Amendment on the Order Paper we do not in any way reflect on the Commission itself, but that we are attacking the Government, not for proceeding with modernisation, as the hon. Gentleman suggested, but for the policies they have pursued which, in our


view, have caused, or at least contributed to, the Commission's very serious financial position.
Nobody would have thought from the hon. Gentleman's speech that the Minister of Transport has come under some very considerable criticism during recent months; that he has been the subject of three critical Reports—two of which are relevant to the affairs of the Commission—and that these Reports also provide us with support for our Amendment.
Before coming to the reasons why we think that our Amendment deserves the support of the House, I want to deal, as did the Parliamentary Secretary, with the Reports. In many ways, the reappraisal Report supersedes the Report and Accounts for 1958. As it were, it brings those up-to-date, and looks to the future. Despite the bad financial results, it is important, as the hon. Gentleman appreciated, not to overlook the Commission's very considerable achievements during 1958, in difficult circumstances. It is very difficult to proceed with normal operations—and to improve operations—at a time when a vast plan of capital investment and reconstruction of the system is being carried out. However, we must also keep in perspective the results over the whole period of nationalisation since 1948, and compare them, perhaps, with results in the pre-war period, when there was a considerable deterioration in the railway system.
I would remind the House that during the first eight years of nationalisation, right up to 1956, the Commission succeeded in earning a working surplus, before payment of interest, and that in the three years 1951–53 it had an overall surplus after meeting all central charges, including interest. It is significant that it was after 1953 that the Commission started to run into difficulties. That is significant, because it was in that year that the Government's transport policy of breaking up the Commission in favour of private enterprise, and supplanting planned transport with a competitive system, began to have its disastrous effects.
Despite the handicaps under which the Commission suffered during 1958, it has had some considerable achievements. One that must not be overlooked is that

in the face of the tremendous increase in private transport, private motoring and the like, more passengers are now being carried by British Railways than were carried before the war. In 1958, the number of passengers carried was a record since nationalisation—except for the Suez year, when the carryings were artificially inflated.
In addition, freight carryings are still very considerable, in spite of the recession—for which the Government are, of course, responsible—which led to a fall in the heavy traffics. Anybody studying the Report will be confirmed in the belief that the railways are, and will remain, a tremendous carrier of goods and passengers, and cannot be dispensed with. I do not think that any hon. Member would quarrel with that statement.
As was stated by the Parliamentary Secretary, and by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) in an intervention, fares and charges are, in real terms, below those obtaining before the war; that is to say, comparing the pre-war purchasing power of the £ with that of today the fares and charges are less in real terms—

Mr. Scholefield Allen: When I said "pre-war", I did not mean before this last war, but pre-1913.

Mr. Davies: I appreciate that, but in its Report the Commission publishes diagrams comparing present results with those of before the last war, and that, I think, is the significant period.
That result is certainly not true of any consumer goods produced by private enterprise. This is a nationalised industry which, in real terms, has succeeded in keeping the cost of its services below the pre-war cost. That, of course, is due to the increased efficiency—[Interruption.] If the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinching-brooke) will read the Report and study the diagrams he will see that what I have said is correct—

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: The hon. Gentleman is making it appear as though this was a triumph for nationalisation and the Commission. The plain fact is that, for social and policy reasons, successive Governments have required the Commission to keep its fares and freight charges down.

Mr. Davies: I intended to deal with that point later. One of our charges against the Government is that their action in this respect is responsible for the Commission's present financial position—

Mr. John Peyton: rose—

Mr. Davies: I am sorry, but I want to develop my argument. If, later, the hon. Member wishes to challenge me on certain aspects that I consider worthy of challenge I shall gladly give way, but I have much to say. The Parliamentary Secretary took some time—I make no complaint of that—and other hon. Members want to speak.
We should not minimise the achievements of the Commission since 1948 despite the very considerable change there has been in the transport pattern including, mainly, the great growth in private transport. These achievements are largely due to the work of the Commission's staff in its various undertakings, and I would share in the tribute paid to the staff by the hon. Gentleman. Here it is worth while drawing attention to paragraph 12 of the Report which states:
The Commission take this opportunity to pay tribute to the men and women who work in all the ramifications of this great undertaking, whose careers are bound up with public transport in one form or another and who are, in spite of some derogation, among the best servants which the public possess. … The staff of no private undertakings work under the same glare of public criticism as those employed on the railways and road transport and in the catering and other branches of the Commission.
I am sure that the whole House will agree with that and will wish to pay tribute to the work which is being done.
Railways the world over are being affected by the same set of circumstances, and are experiencing this deficit operation, whether they be nationalised or operated by private enterprise. The same thing is true of the United States as it is of Britain, Germany and France, and, consequently, the order of the day is, "Modernise or die".
If one turns to the less happy picture of finance, one must continue, I regret to say, to take a gloomy view. First, I would draw attention to the fact that since nationalisation the Commission has paid out on its capital and loans no less than £475 million in interest. It has paid

that out in interest at the same time as it has financed a considerable part of its capital investment out of its depreciation and maintenance allocations.
Under private enterprise, a large part of that interest would have been earned for the equity capital, and if the earnings had not been adequate, the dividend, of course, would have been passed and the money would not have been paid out. In other words, the holders of equity capital would have received nothing. The Commission, because of the nature of its capital, has to pay this interest—this fixed interest—on all its capital in the fat years and in the lean years.
I would further point out that private companies would have claimed that profits were earned up to 1956, because the profits of private enterprise companies are normally declared before debenture interest is charged. They are declared as profits, and then the debenture interest charges are deducted. Therefore, the Commission could claim that it was operating at a profit up to 1956.
Looking ahead, the reappraisal Report confirms the worst predictions which we have made from these benches throughout these debates. Ministers then accused us of being defeatist or pessimistic, but the figures which have appeared on future prospects and interest charges confirm, unfortunately, everything which has been said from this side of the House. In fact, the figure of £90 million for interest charges by 1963 is a figure which I quoted in the debate on the Transport (Borrowing Powers) Bill in December last year and in January of this year.
I claimed then, and I repeat now, that the Government plan for financing the deficit is a crazy plan and is a crippling form of finance. In fact, it is "Alice in Wonderland" economics. Let us consider it, though it is very difficult to do so. In the first year, the Commission borrows to meet the deficit, and in the following year it borrows to meet the interest on the deficit and to meet the deficit for that year. In the next year, it borrows to meet the interest on the deficit and the interest on the interest borrowed to meet the interest borrowed to meet the interest borrowed to meet the deficit. This is "The House that Harold Built."
As the Parliamentary Secretary pointed out, the reappraisal estimates that, on the present basis, the working surplus can be from £50 million to £100 million by 1963. That is a wide margin, and it is also a wide guess, but it shows how many imponderables there are. The Commission estimates that interest charges will be £90 million in 1963, rising to £110 million in 1965. Therefore, on the most optimistic of its estimates there is bound to be a deficit. The Commission cannot escape continuing to operate on a deficit, and this gives us very serious concern when we consider the question of capital reconstruction, to which I will come later.
I would point out that both the Commission and the Minister have so far been wrong in their estimates. These estimates have proved to be a long way out, and the results have been far worse than estimated, but the reason for this is not the action taken by the Commission, but the policies which the Ministry has pursued. Therefore, the Ministry has far less excuse for being wrong than the Commission.
In 1956–57, the House was asked to vote £250 million for deficit financing. It was considered to be enough to last the Commission until 1963, but in 1957, some months after the House had agreed to that, when the position was already deteriorating, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. P. Thorneycroft), in the debate on the economic situation, dealing with the position of the Commission, said:
So that it should know exactly how it stands, the Commission has accordingly been informed that for 1958"—
that is, the year we are now dealing with—
the amount will not be in excess of the ascertained deficit for 1957, as certified by the auditors in due course; and that for 1959 finances will be reduced in accordance with the forecast on which the White Paper is based."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th Oct., 1957; Vol. 575, c. 57.]
That was the decree of the then Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Now, we are dealing with 1958, and the deficit is £89 million, which is £34·4 million greater than was estimated, and the Government are meeting it. In other words, what the Chancellor of the

Exchequer then said the Government had to ignore. I suppose that £89 million is not in excess of the ascertained deficit of £54·6 million, which was the estimate for 1957.
Here, again, this is typical of the Government. They lay down policies one day which they cannot abide by and then have to desert them the next. How can the Commission operate with any foreknowledge of the position when the Government are changing their attitude in this way? It was inevitable, as we pointed out at the time, that the Minister would have to ask the House to raise the amount permitted for deficit financing. That should have warned them at the time of the effects of the policies which they were going to pursue, and of the disastrous effect which their policy of economic stagnation was bound to have on the Commission.
It is reasonable to question whether even the present depressing estimate of the reappraisal Report will be fulfilled, I suggest that it certainly will not if the present Government continue to be responsible for the mismanagement of the Commission's business, and if they continue a policy of interfering with its affairs. On the Government's past record, the Commission certainly will not be able to fulfil the estimates.
Let us take a look at the record of the Government where the Commission are concerned. In the first place, the inflationary policy pursued by the Government initially led to rising costs and wage demands, with requests for increased charges following, because they were necessary to meet them. The Commission was prevented or delayed in raising the charges to meet those costs. This was followed by deflationary policies which resulted in great losses of traffic, particularly the heavy freight traffic. It was followed by another standstill on charges and the restriction or curtailment of the new capital programme on which the Commission was embarking.
One can look a little more closely at some of the interference of which the Minister was guilty. The recent Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries, in effect, censured the Minister of Transoort for excessive interference in the affairs of the civil airways Corporations beyond his statutory powers. In


the case of the Transport Commission he has been guilty of that to an even greater degree, and with far more harmful effects than in the case of the civil airways Corporations. In previous debates in this House I have given a long catalogue of his sins in this respect, but unfortunately, he has not stopped sinning and he is certainly not repentant.
I do not wish to repeat this long catalogue, but I should like to refer to one or two items with which the House is well acquainted. The Minister's predecessors began with the interference in the fares of London Transport in March, 1952, at the time of the London County Council elections. The interference was for political reasons. We know that. Despite the Transport Tribunal's authorisation for those fares to go up, the Government at that time prevented them going up and brought about a standstill over a period. Then, not to be outdone by his predecessors, in February, 1956, when the Commission had applied to the present Minister of Transport for an increase of 10 per cent. in freight charges, he refused to allow them to be increased by more than 5 per cent.—only half the required increase—although the 1947 Act required him to consult and consider the advice of the Transport Tribunal.
Contrary to this statutory requirement, the right hon. Gentleman announced in this House that he would permit the Commission to increase its fares and freight charges by only 5 per cent., although it had been proved by the Commission that on commercial grounds, so that it could meet its statutory obligation to pay its way, it was essential that these fares and freight charges should go up by 10 per cent.
Later, the Minister followed the statutory requirement of referring the matter to the Transport Tribunal after he had limited the increase to 5 per cent. Then the Tribunal reported that it was contrary to the Commission's financial interest not to permit the charges to go up by 10 per cent. The Tribunal said that it was "urgently necessary "—those were its words—for the charges to be raised to the full extent. In other words, the Minister ignored the advice of the Tribunal which he was statutorily required to take, and he made regulations limiting the amount to which the charges could be raised.
What more could the Minister do to damage the Commission's financial state? He did more. He used the good old Army technique of putting the Commission up against a wall and persuading it to volunteer not to raise its charges for six months. He has very persuasive powers when it comes to dealing with the Commission and he reports to the House that it has acted voluntarily in doing such things.
Of course, the net result of these interferences in the commercial right of the Commission to charge rates essential to enable it to pay its way—rates which were below the economic cost of operating the undertakings—has been that charges have never been able to catch up with costs because, although they were justified, they were too little and too late, thanks to the Minister. That is one reason why we are moving our Amendment to the Motion. But we can go further than this. There is the same disastrous sequence of events concerning the false economies—so-called economies—which the Minister has again persuaded the Commission to carry out. When the Commission agrees to make economies of £10 million he "ups the ante" to £20 million. That is the way that he has behaved.
The Minister is a great one at making speeches. We have heard a lot about his speeches recently. I recall one that he made on 13th March, 1958, after the Industrial Court's award to the London busmen. At Sevenoaks, he said:
As to the award itself, that is for the London Transport to consider and not the Government.
That was fair enough. But then he went on to say, according to a newspaper report:
With the full agreement of his colleagues he"—
that is, the Minister—
had made it plain to London Transport some time ago that he could not support or defend further general increases in London Transport fares … 'This award, if it is agreed by the parties, would not therefore increase the inflationary pressure as has too often happened in the past …' I had already told the British Transport Commission, in a letter dated 22nd October, that in accordance with the Government's financial policy no increase could be made in the advances due to the British Transport Commission under the Railway Finances Act, 1957.
In other words, the Government are not prepared to find the money to cover any


further increase in the Commission's deficit caused by an increase in costs.
It was typical that the letter to which he referred and which he sent in October had never been mentioned in this House, but was mentioned in a speech outside in March following. But that speech certainly did not help towards a settlement of the bus dispute which followed. When that was settled he again rushed to the country, this time to Camberley, to make another speech, in which, again, after the strike had been settled, he then repeated that
The London Transport Executive know quite clearly the financial circumstances to which they have to conform.
Then he said:
These have not been eased in any way by the Government and therefore the London Transport Executive are fully aware that any settlement has to be held by savings, cuts, or economies within the strict limits laid down last autumn.
I refer to these matters because here again is evidence that the Minister was forcing action upon the Commission: in this case, economies to meet rising costs, cuts in the services which made it impossible for the Commission to meet its statutory obligation. In other words, if there is a wage award and the costs go up substantially, although the Commission is required under the Act, as it is, to pay its way, he says that the only way to meet the increased costs is by economies, not by higher charges. There is no alternative. The Minister refuses to allow an increase in charges on the one hand, and he forces economies, on the other hand, which have led to a threat to the maintenance of the public services.
On top of these specific actions—and there are many more with which I have not time to weary the House—is the destructive transport policy followed by the Government since 1951, directed against the Commission and in favour of private enterprise, and particularly their political friends the road hauliers. The denationalisation of road haulage which they attempted and failed to effect completely because of the success of the publicly operated B.R.S., was only one of their destructive steps. Amendments to the 1947 Act took away from the Commission the responsibility of providing an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of

public inland transport, and substituted a duty confined to providing railway services and certain other services which might appear to be expedient. In fact, they destroyed the objective of the 1947 Act which was to provide an adequate, efficient public service throughout the country.

Sir Wavell Wakefield: At much too high a cost.

Mr. Davies: The hon. Gentleman says, "At much too high a cost", but at that time the Commission was paying its way. When the Tory Government came in, a surplus was being earned and profits were being made.

Mr. Peyton: The hon. Gentleman is attacking private enterprise very strongly. Can he say whether or not he thinks it is a good thing for the economy in general that road haulage rates have gone down by 25 per cent. since denationalisation?

Mr. Davies: In the first place, the hon. Gentleman is wrong in assuming that they have gone down to the extent which he stated. In the second place, we all know that they have gone down because of the manner in which many private enterprise road haulage firms are operating. Their drivers are being worked beyond the statutory permitted number of hours, records are being falsified and the law is not being adequately enforced by the Minister.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): Really, these wild charges are getting worse. I will certainly give notice that I will answer that point when I wind up the debate. My Department certainly enforces and implements the regulations, and the right hon. Gentleman knows that very well.

Mr. Davies: I know perfectly well that when cases are brought to the Minister's attention he courteously refers them to the enforcement officers, but, as I have frequently stated, there are not enough enforcement officers. If the Minister wanted to enforce the law he could increase, and should increase, very substantially the number of enforcement officers.
Concerning the cuts in services which the reappraisal Report suggests—and this is one of the most serious aspects of the Report, I think—there is a necessity for


one word of warning. I think that the whole House agrees that there must be some cuts due to the change in travelling habits and to the changes in the needs of the transport users. The railways have, of course, followed a policy of shedding uneconomic services over a very long period, particularly where alternative facilities exist. But it is necessary, I think, to draw a line and to limit the extent to which these cuts should continue. One wonders how long this strip-tease act, as it were, can continue without the system catching its death of cold.
The railways operate on very high fixed costs, the costs arising from the initial cost of the system, the maintenance charges and an inherent inability to reduce operating costs proportionately to the reduction in traffics. For the railways to pay their way there must be a spreading of these costs over a great volume of traffic. The attracting of more traffics and not the elimination of essential services is the answer to the difficulties of the railways.
To cut out facilities that would otherwise attract traffics is no answer. There is a danger in this negative policy. I would say that this is, also, bad for the staff. Staff morale cannot help but be affected. It cannot be expected to maintain its enthusiasm when it sees the system on which it depends for its livelihood gradually shrinking under its eyes. If this process continues indefinitely we shall be left with no railways at all, because it will be impossible to have a viable railway system.
It may be that the Minister will reply that the Commission favours this contraction. It may be that it does, though to what extent I am not in a position to know. But I do know that the policy of contraction has gone further, and is planned in the Report to go much further, than the top executives in the railway administration and even the Minister's favourite children, the area boards, favour. They are opposed, I understand, to the extent of this curtailment.
Of course, the corollary of this retraction is the position of the railway workshops, to which reference has been made during the debate so far. I do not wish to deal with that matter because my hon. Friends are in a better position to do so both from constituency and union points of view. However, I would point

out one thing, which is that the main trouble concerning the railway workshops today is that during the passage of the 1947 Act an Amendment was moved by the Tory Party, which, to my regret, was accepted by the then Minister of Transport, preventing the Commission from selling any of its products outside its own undertakings. Had that Amendment not been inserted in the Act at Tory instigation the Commission would be able to compete in the open market today and keep many of its workshop employees at work.

Mr. J. T. Price: Will my hon. Friend allow me to make a short comment on that matter? Does the Minister recall that the railway workshops, during the difficult war years, when we needed all the production we could get, were extensively used for producing tanks and military equipment of all kinds and that even under today's planning for military defence they no longer enjoy those facilities, which very often they would have the resources to meet, to take up the slack in excess capacity?

Mr. Davies: I agree with my hon. Friend, and I regret that the Commission is not permitted to pursue that policy.
The Government have presented this reappraisal Report to the House without really stating their attitude towards it except to accept the modernisation plan as it stands. The Parliamentary Secretary did not help us a great deal to understand what the Government's plan or policy is in regard to the Report. I want to know from the Minister whether we can be assured that the assumptions on which the plan is based will be realised. There are three in particular.
First, will it leave to the Commission freedom from interference and allow it to operate commercially as far as fares and charges are concerned? Will it cease playing ducks and drakes with its finances in this regard for party political purposes? Secondly, can the Commission rely on the Government to give it an assurance that it can proceed with its capital investment programme to the extent outlined in the Report without chopping and changing it as in the past? Here, again, there is nothing worse for the morale of its keen and enthusiastic staff than for it to set out on a task only


to find that it is suddenly stopped. Continuity is essential if the plan is to succeed, because it is a long-term plan and is phased accordingly.
Thirdly, what are the Government going to do about capital reconstruction? The Parliamentary Secretary referred to this matter and said that it needed consideration. He gave some principles on which it should be considered, and I do not entirely dissent from some of those. But in the view of the Opposition some such reconstruction is necessary, indeed inevitable, and should have been effected long ago. It has become urgent because the Government have delayed acting to assist the Commission for so long and have interfered to such an extent and engaged in such unrealistic financing that on its present capital structure the Commission can never pay its way.
Neither the Minister nor the Commission can possibly persuade themselves into believing that the Commission can ever earn sufficient to meet the heavy charge of £110 million of interest in 1965. But for nationalisation the railway shareholders who opposed it would have lost their money years ago. Modernisation would have been impossible as the railways were rapidly approaching bankruptcy. They would have been unable to raise the capital to modernise as is being done today by the Government.
I would remind the House that in 1935 an Act was passed which permitted the Government to advance capital to the railways to enable them to modernise. In the Memorandum which accompanied the Bill it was stated:
… the Companies will be enabled to put in hand as soon as practicable an extensive programme of reconstruction and improvement estimated to cost about £30 million. The proposed works … could not at present have been carried out without the financial facilities arranged.
This shows that the railways, before the war, were not in a position to carry out the modernisation which was essential to their success.
The sooner there is a capital reconstruction, the better for all those who use and work upon the railways. No undertaking facing insolvency, as, unhappily, the Commission does today, according to the reappraisal Report, can be a happy one and provide the best service to those

who use it. It will be necessary to find out the maximum economic contribution which the present investment in the railways can make and then to reduce the capital accordingly. Its capital must be adjusted to the level at which presumed future earnings will at least bear all outgoings, including interest charges. That is because a viable transport system is vital to the economy.
I have spoken rather longer than I intended and I apologise, but I have touched only on a certain number of points which we can level against the Government on their transport policy. While the Opposition welcome the operational achievements of the Transport Commission, which more than justify the nationalisation of transport, and while they support in principle the modernisation plan as reappraised, both Reports convincingly confirm the view long held by us on this side that but for the policies and actions of the Government, and of the present Minister in particular, the Commission's finances would not have deteriorated to a point where the maintenance of a transport system in the national interest is in grave danger.
Because of the Government's record in transport matters, governed by doctrinaire considerations, we have no confidence that the assumptions on which the plan is based will be realised or that the rise in industrial production and the increase in the standard of living, on which they depend, for instance, will be forthcoming under a Tory Government. For these reasons, and because the Government have always lacked a constructive transport policy, only by a change to a policy of a planned publicly-owned transport system operated in the national interest—that means a change of Government—can there be a final solution of the difficulties of the Commission, and that must await the General Election.

5.12 p.m.

Mr. G. Lindgren: I beg to second the Amendment.
In doing so, may I declare my interest in that I am associated with the railway industry and I speak on behalf of its clerical, professional and technical workers? After the rather straight talking of my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) to the


Minister, may I tell the Minister that the workers in the industry consider him to be the worst Minister of Transport that this country has seen? They have no confidence in him. As one of the industry's leaders said publicly quite recently, the less they see of him the better it is for him.
However, there is one thing for which we cannot blame the Minister. Ever since the invention of the internal combustion engine, there has been growing difficulty for the railway transport system. Some of us are old enough to remember the old "square deal for the railways" campaign during the inter-war years. Even the present Prime Minister was a director of the Great Western Railway, and, of course, he supported the "square deal for the railways" campaign, but nothing was done, except to pass the Railways (Agreement) Act, 1935, to which my hon. Friend referred, and to discuss the possibility of further Government-financed loans for capital development.
The first effective step taken to deal with the problem which arose before the war was the passing of the Transport Act, 1947. The House of Commons works on a political basis. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have political ideals, but hon. and right hon. Members opposite cannot get away from the fact that the only way to make the transport industry viable is by integration on the basis of the 1947 Act. The problems with which we have to deal today arise directly from the fact that the Minister's predecessors undermined the basis of the 1947 Act and brought about the present difficulties of the Commission. We must remind hon. and right hon. Members opposite that the previous Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation referred to those who accepted the heavy responsibility of service on nationalised boards on behalf of the country as Quislings. When Ministers of State refer to such people as Quislings, is it surprising that we wonder whether their hearts are in the effort to make any nationalised industry pay?
The most serious problem that we have to face is that there is a very grave danger of the public transport system collapsing—road transport, road and rail freight, and passenger services as well. Modernisation and rationalisation are a step forward, but let me make it plain that, from my point of view, modernisation

and rationalisation on their own will never deal with the present difficulties of the public transport system.
I am sorry that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary went into political tirades, because generally we have more affection for him than for the Minister, but he referred to C licences and wondered what we are to do with them. Any Government that tackles the problem of the maintenance of a railway system will have to deal with C licences. The C licence is maintained at the expense of the Treasury, the national Exchequer. The services of C-licence operators are largely run at a cost over and above that for which the railway service could provide the transport. They are largely run for prestige purposes by manufacturers or distributors. If manufacturers want to maintain their own transport system for prestige purposes, then I, for one, see no reason why they should not pay heavily for it, because we cannot maintain a transport system which is only partially used and expect the workers in the industry or the taxpayers to meet the cost.

Mr. Norman Cole: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that in the final analysis he would prevent a manufacturer having permission to carry his own goods in his own vans?

Mr. Lindgren: I will make it clear. There are only two choices, as I see it. There should either be restriction according to the type of traffic carried—I am talking about long-distance traffic, not the milkman, the baker or the butcher making local deliveries—or, if it is maintained for prestige purposes, the operators should pay a considerably higher licence fee for the prestige of running their own transport.

Mr. Leslie Thomas: Surely, C-licence holders run their vehicles for economic reasons, not entirely for prestige reasons.

Mr. Lindgren: The hon. Gentleman may not know, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer, very largely, pays for the C-licence holder running his own transport system. I do not say all, but very many of them are running their service at a cost well above that at which the same transport service could be provided by the established transport organisations,


whether British Road Services or the railways.
I look at this matter from the point of view of national economics. Here we have a railway system half used or less than half used, while the roads of the country are strained to the limit. The obvious thing to do is to ensure that our public transport system is fully used and our roads are not overstrained. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary referred often to profit and loss. There is more than one way of looking at profit and loss. If it is true, as I suggest, that there is a danger of our public transport system being undermined, what will be the effect of such a result on our country's economy, if there is no rail commuter service and no railway system? What would be the effect on industry if there were no railway system to take the surplus traffics which the C-licence holder does not want to carry or which the road hauliers do not want to carry and leave to the railways?
The railways are there to be used. If they are not allowed fully to meet their costs, those costs will have to be met in one way or another. My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East referred to Government interference and to interference by the Minister in freight charges. In addition to interference by Ministers of Transport of various Governments, there has been public resistance to rail fare increases and bus fare increases. I must admit that I have sometimes been surprised when a trade union branch which itself has put in an application for a wage increase and secured it has opposed any likely increases in transport charges which were to result from an increase in wages or salaries paid to railway men.
The country and the Government must make up their minds—the Government do not seem to have made up their mind yet—whether they are prepared to accept a public transport system and to meet the cosl of the social value of it to which the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) referred earlier as the reason for interference by previous Tory Governments with the Commission's ability to increase its fares.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: All Governments.

Mr. Lindgren: I do not remember it being done before 1952. The first interference with a decision of the Tribunal was in 1952 by the then Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill). If the noble Lord can give me any other reference, I shall, of course, give way to him and apologise.
One must realise that there is a social value to be derived from the operation of both goods and passenger services, or, as has been suggested today by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, the transport system must pay its way. If it is to pay its way, it must be free. But the British Transport Commission is not free. It cannot relate its charges to the costs it has to meet. It still operates under the restriction of being a common carrier and it cannot refuse traffic. More often than not, it has to carry traffics which road hauliers refuse to carry
If we are to have a free-for-all and competition, the competition must be on a fair basis. We must let the railways compete with the road hauliers on a basis of freedom. It is suggested that the railways can do that, but, in fact, they cannot. The railways are still common carriers. They are still restricted in the various rates which they can charge. They must still go through the procedure of application to the Tribunal, and they still have to run the risk of a Tory Minister of Transport refusing to allow them to make the charges for which they are given authority.
If my calculations are right—again, I am quite prepared to be corrected if I am wrong—taking into account the present modernisation programme and the rest of the capital structure of the B.T.C., the total figure of capital is about £3,000 million. That is a fantastic capital burden for the railways to have to bear when one considers that much of the capital is well over 100 years old. This £3,000 million has to be serviced by a much smaller, though, we hope, more efficient system of operation.
I join with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East in saying, quite frankly, that the British Transport Commission just cannot service that £3,000 million. After all, the operation of a railway system is a high-cost business. It has to operate for 168 hours a week. The cost must be carried, but the system can use its capital fully only during periods of


peak operation. As my hon. Friend said, we are in this fantastic situation that, not only do the railway workers work to provide for the interest charges on the capital invested in the industry, but they have even to work to carry interest charges on the moneys borrowed to finance the deficit of the industry.
On behalf of the salaried workers of the British Transport Commission, I say that we welcome the modernisation plan. We shall do everything we can to assist in modernisation and rationalisation. We shall co-operate to the full. We do not object to a smaller railway system. Contrary, perhaps, to the view of some of my hon. Friends, we agree that many of the lines which were put down in the early days of the railway boom were put down in a period of competition and were never really justified. They have not been able to justify themselves for many years. We do not object to a smaller, more efficient railway industry in this country.
We ask that the Government, who are now financing this modernisation pro gramme and who have welcomed it today, should make it possible for the Transport Commission to meet the costs of the capital invested in the industry. No worker likes to be associated with an in dustry which is losing money or which is always being criticised for working under a deficiency. Therefore, there is, because of the mere fact of morale with in the industry, a duty on the Government to ensure that—

ROYAL ASSENT

5.30 p.m.

Message to attend the Lords Commissioners:

The House went:—and, having returned;

Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to:

1. Finance Act, 1959.
2. Appropriation Act, 1959.
3. Education Act, 1959.
4. National Galleries of Scotland Act, 1959.
5. New Towns Act, 1959.
6. Export Guarantees Act, 1959.
7. Landlord and Tenant (Furniture and Fittings) Act, 1959.
8. Fatal Accidents Act, 1959.
9. Obscene Publications Act, 1959.
10. Factories Act, 1959.

11. Statute Law Revision Act, 1959.
12. Wages Councils Act, 1959.
13. Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1959.
14. Colonial Development and Welfare Act, 1959.
15. Mental Health Act, 1959.
16. Legitimacy Act, 1959.
17. Edinburgh College of Art Order Confirmation Act, 1959.
18. Leith Harbour and Docks Order Confirmation Act, 1959.
19. British Transport Commission Order Confirmation Act, 1959.
20. Pier and Harbour Order (Gloucester) Confirmation Act, 1959.
21. Pier and Harbour Order (Med-way Lower Navigation) Confirmation Act, 1959.
22. Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust Act, 1959.
23. Falmouth Docks Act, 1959.
24. Bootle Corporation Act, 1959.
25. Tees Valley and Cleveland Water Act, 1959.
26. Mid-Wessex Water Act, 1959.
27. British Transport Commission Act, 1959.
28. Portsmouth Corporation Act, 1959.
29. Humber Bridge Act, 1959.
30. Shell-Mex and B.P. (London Airport Pipeline) Act, 1959.
31. Halifax Corporation Act, 1959.
32. City of London (Various Powers) Act, 1959.
33. South Wales Transport Act, 1959.
34. Lee Valley Water Act, 1959.
35. London County Council (General Powers) Act, 1959.

BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION (ANNUAL REPORT)

Question again proposed,
That this House takes note of the Report and Accounts of the British Transport Commission for 1958 and of the Report reappraising the plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways (Command Paper No. 813).—[Mr. Nugent.]

Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add:
and while welcoming the progress being made in the modernisation and re-equipment of the railways, regrets the actions of Her Majesty's Government which have damaged the financial solvency of the British Transport Commission and led to the curtailment in the services it should render in the national interest".—[Mr. Ernest Davies]

5.47 p.m.

Mr. Lindgren: When the procedural interruption occurred, I was addressing to the Minister a plea that there should be a real reconstruction of the capital finances of the British Transport Commission to bring about a relationship with the capital costs of the equipment which the Commission operates.
I was making the point, too, that no group of workers likes to be associated with an industry which is always operating with a deficit. If it has to operate with a deficit and it is a social service, then we accept it. But if there is a deficit when the Government of the day say that the undertaking must be run in such a fashion as to meet its costs, then those who invest their lives and their skill—all the capital they have—in the industry ask that the industry should be given a chance to pay its way by having a financial structure which has some relationship to the industry itself.
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East called attention to the Commission's appreciation of the workers inside the industry and the manner in which they carry out their various tasks. There is one phase of the modernisation programme and the accounts which has not been taken into consideration—the possibilities of the future. In May, 1958, when we had the last wage negotiations, in which the Minister interfered in the same way as he interferes in other operations of the Commission, part of the settlement was that there should be an independent inquiry into the wage and salary structure of the industry.
It has been argued by those of us on the trade union side that the railwaymen in all grades, the salaried as well as the wages grades, have been grossly underpaid in relation to the responsibility and the duties which they carry. In order that that can be ascertained factually this independent inquiry has been set up. We do not know what the result of that inquiry will be, but we do know the wage and salary structure within our own industry and we think we know the wage and salary structure in other industries, and those of us associated with transport can see no other result of the inquiry than that there will be a showing of the under-payment of wages and salaries on the railways and the natural entering into negotiations between the Commission and

the unions for a realignment of the structure of wages and salaries.
I want to make the plea to the Minister that on this occasion he should leave the Commission free to enter those negotiations with the unions, and leave the Commission and the unions to negotiate freely on the evidence before them. If we are to have an industry which has got to pay its way, then in the settlement of wages and salaries the Commission should be free equally to make arrangements to meet the costs satisfactorily.

5.52 p.m.

Mr. John Peyton: The hon. Gentleman the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), who has just seconded the Amendment, was, I thought, a great deal more frank with the House than was the hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), who moved it.
I find it almost incredible that within weeks or months, or whatever it may be, of the General Election, the spokesman for the party opposite, the Front Bench spokesman of the party which was responsible originally for nationalisation, and which has just now launched what amounts to a Motion of censure on the Government, found it impossible, in the course of a long speech, to devote even a few minutes to indicating what his party's proposals are for the difficult problems which undoubtedly, we all admit, face the British Transport Commission. It was an almost incredible speech. It repeated the themes which we have heard so often before, and without pausing even for a minute to make a single constructive suggestion.

Mr. Ernest Davies: We made constructive suggestions in 1947.

Mr. Peyton: I am so deeply obliged to the hon. Gentleman, whose only reply to me now is that they made their constructive suggestions in 1947. What a perfectly splendid admission: the last time they made a suggestion was twelve years ago, and they have not another one to make yet.

Mr. Davies: I do not think that the hon. Gentleman need get so excited over this. The policy which we laid down in the 1947 Act, as I pointed out in my speech, was working satisfactorily when the Tory Government came in in 1951.


The policy of a planned, integrated, coordinated transport system which includes the renationalisation of road haulage is the policy to which we shall return when we get back to power.

Mr. Peyton: Let us with great effort haul ourselves back to 1959 and its problems. This is 1959 now. The hon. Gentleman seems unaware of that.
There were some points in the hon. Gentleman's speech with which I agreed. He mentioned particularly the difficulties facing the Transport Commission and the men throughout the railway industry in carrying on operations at the same time as a major reconstruction was going on. That is a very genuine point. I often think that the public do not realise the very considerable difficulties which face the Commission in this respect. Some of us from both sides of the House have had an opportunity of looking at some of the operations being carried on by the Commission at present. We have all admired the magnificent work which has been done to keep the operations going at the same time as a very major scheme of redevelopment has been carried out.
There is another point which the hon. Gentleman made to which I must refer. He reiterated the old parrot cry that the Government were responsible for the recession which has done so much damage to the industry. Very interestingly, very shortly afterwards he said that railways all over the world had been affected by the same circumstances. Either the hon. Gentleman still lives in such a tight little world of his own that he has no conception of what is going on outside, or, alternatively, he just omitted to advert to the fact of which he is perfectly well aware that every country in the Western world has been suffering from a considerable recession, in most cases with far more disadvantageous effects than has been the case in this country.
The hon. Gentleman went on to complain of the growth of private transport and said it had damaged the Commission. He did not really make it clear what he was going to do about this. Does he really thing that it is a bad thing, this growth of private transport?

Mr. Ernest Davies: I never said so.

Mr. Peyton: Am I right in supposing, then, that the hon. Member does not

think the growth of private transport is a bad thing? Because that is a very welcome piece of conversion, if that is his view.

Mr. Davies: I do not understand why the hon. Gentleman always puts words into my mouth and misinterprets what I said. Nobody can deny that one of the main problems which confronts transport today is the growth of private transport. I have said frequently that the increase in private motoring will continue. Nobody is against the growth of private transport, but there are cases where some control is necessary, and some control is already exercised.

Mr. Peyton: It is the great difficulty that none of us knows what these controls to which the hon. Gentleman frequently refers in his speeches are; we do not know exactly what he means by them.
I must sympathise with the hon. Member about the inquiry into the transport of goods by road. He had, obviously, expected a very different result to be forthcoming. He has not been wise enough to keep quiet and bottle up his disappointment, but has let it out publicly, and he has made it very clear on a number of occasions that he is horrified, in particular, by the conclusion that C-licence vehicles are not inefficiently operated. That is a result very disappointing to him. Therefore, he claims that it must be entirely attributed to bias. He is blaming the referee.
The Opposition Amendment is really rather extraordinary, for the simple fact of the situation is that the Government are blamed for damaging the financial solvency of the railways at a time when we are investing, or providing taxpayers' money, to the extent of £1,500 million to help a very extensive modernisation programme. Really, one has to be subtle to follow the kind of argument which says that while we are providing £1,500 million of public money for a modernisation programme, with the aims of which none of us quarrels, we are damaging the undertaking's financial solvency.
I may have been unduly optimistic, but I had confidently expected to hear a little more about what is meant by "disintegration". Hon. Members opposite are fond of saying from time to time that they will produce an integrated


system of transport. But what will happen? They nationalised 20 per cent. of the road haulage industry, omitting C-licence vehicles. Are they suggesting now that had that 20 per cent. remained in public ownership it would have made a vital difference to the finances of the British Transport Commission? If that is so, it is laughable.

Mr. Charles Howell: Why did the party opposite sell it if it was not profitable? I am rather interested in this disintegration. Will the hon. Member tell us what part of the industry the Transport Commission was forced to sell which was not making a profit?

Mr. Peyton: I was not talking about disintegration, but trying to understand the policy of the party opposite and why hon. and right hon. Members opposite have today tabled a censure Amendment in the name of the Leader of the Opposition. This is one more bad bet made by the hon. and right hon. Members opposite. They have thought that here was something which might win. They thought that this was a good runner but, on the basis of speeches made from the Front Bench opposite, we can say now that it is not a winner. It would finish last in any political race.
There is no doubt that road haulage rates have fallen substantially since denationalisation. Is this something which the hon. Member for Enfield, East welcomes or not? If the party opposite comes into power, which I think is highly unlikely, will the hon. Member try to reverse the process and get back to a stage where prices can be expected to rise over the whole of the national economy? We are entitled to ask whether that is what the hon. Member wants. I am justified in making these points because we are left in the dark about the intentions of the party opposite. I may be wrong, but I understand that a high-powered committee of the National Executive of the Labour Party has been studying this matter for over two years, but has failed signally yet to produce any coherent policy for transport.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: What is the policy of the party opposite?

Mr. Peyton: Has the party opposite made up its mind whether subsidised transport is desirable or not? Has it made up its mind on any clear proposals to deal with C licences?
A number of other hon. Members will wish to speak in the debate and I have probably said as much as I ought to say about Opposition proposals. So far as we have been given any clue to what they are, the party opposite has offered no solution. For the most part we, the country in general, the transport user, the worker in transport, and the management in transport, are left entirely in the dark about these proposals.
A great many hon. Members opposite would do well to find out what proposals are being put forward by their own Front Bench. They should ask their Front Bench how it could possibly come about that a party which is meant to be a responsible Opposition launches a censure Amendment of this kind just before a General Election and, in the process, does not consider it necessary to put forward a single constructive proposal. That is a fact which must be almost without parallel in political history.
As to the work of the Transport Commission, reference is made in paragraph 180 of the Annual Report to the desirability of gaining or retaining worthwhile traffics. I do not wish to make much of the point, but I think that it would be dangerous if the Commission allowed itself to be led into uneconomic practices in order to hold traffic which, at some future time, might be useful and profitable to it. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Enfield, East appears to have left the Chamber.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Make a speech and get on with it.

Mr. Peyton: I agree with the hon. Member for Enfield, East about the Commission's capital reconstruction. We are rapidly reaching a stage where unreality has gone much too far. I hope that the Commission's expectations will be fulfilled. I believe that as soon as the Commission reaches a balance in its affairs it will be no longer wise or proper to postpone a really radical overhaul of its financial structure. There is no good reason for retaining this quite absurd and unrealistic present structure.
There is also a point to be made about the rate at which modernisation is proceeding. It is a fact not subject to controversy that over the years the railways have lost much of their proportionate share of goods traffic. But is the modernisation programme proceeding fast enough? Is the necessary degree of contraction being carried out quickly enough to match the fall-off in the volume of traffic?
The last major point on the Commission which I should like to make is its public relations. The Commission serves itself ill in the way it carries on this important department. The public are interested in the railways. It would be as well if the Commission lost no opportunity to inform the public of the efforts that are being made, of the difficulties that have to be faced, and the undoubted progress being made in this very comprehensive scheme of modernisation. All of us who travel by rail have to wait at stations and on those stations there is a great deal of free advertising space which the Commission has at its disposal to inform the public of its difficulties, its achievements, its progress and its hopes.
It would be no bad thing if the Commission were seriously to overhaul its public relations department with a view to giving adequate information to the public, who are not only its customers but its bankers. I hope that my right hon. Friend will commend this view to the Commission and that it will take note of it. I am sure that the Commission could save itself much pain and tears if it were to remind itself that the public are anxious to hear about its progress. In last year's Report there is a brief reference to the fact that it is not generally realised that the Commission runs double the number of restaurant cars that are run by all the railways of Europe put together. Why should it be generally realised? The public are not to be expected to read through these annual Reports, and I think that the Commission would be well advised to ensure that much more information is given in digestible form to the public.
May I offer my congratulations to the Commission and to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport? We have made our choice and have laid down the lines upon which to proceed. We have

accepted the fact that modernisation must go ahead. It would be dangerous for politicians to suggest half way through the programme that it should be changed. I reinforce the plea made by the chairman of the Commission in the reappraisal document that there should be some certainty of continuity. It is a most important point and I hope that my right hon. Friend will go as far as he can to give the assurance there asked for, because it would be an important contribution.
I conclude by saying that at a time when, on the whole, it is more popular to complain about railways, to hatch all kinds of stories which reflect against them, I think we should note in this House the undoubted progress which has been made, the undoubted co-operation which has been forthcoming in no easy circumstances between all who are engaged in this great undertaking. It speaks volumes for the good will, for the intelligence and the courage not only of the Commission, but of every man who works in the industry, and, indeed, for the trade unions also, who have their own problems, as one readily admits.
I do not minimise in any way the serious problems facing the Commission. T am certain that it needs, as well as our criticism from time to time, our encouragement and our good will, and I hope very much that it will receive both.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: Among the mixture of hyperbole and mock indignation that has been characteristic of the speech of the hon. Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) there were one or two things with which I could agree. One was the tribute that the hon. Gentleman paid to the Commission on the way it has overcome many of its difficulties. Previously, the hon. Gentleman criticised its publicity. I, on the other hand, give it full marks, and if the hon. Gentleman would visit any Underground station he would see there posters showing, for example, the Barking Cross-over and modern freight services. If the hon. Gentleman travels by railway he will see these posters and publicity, which are first-class, and I only wish other parts of the service were equally good.
The hon. Gentleman said that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield,


East (Mr. Ernest Davies) had made no positive suggestions. If he had listened to my hon. Friend and had not been so emotionally pent up while waiting to make his own speech—we know how frustrating this is—he would have realised that my hon. Friend made precisely the same suggestions as he himself made, namely, that there should be financial reorganisation of the British Transport Commission. So I regret the tone of the hon. Gentleman's remarks.
I begin by saying that the subject of railways is not sufficiently discussed in the House of Commons. We discuss it once a year when there are three days allocated to the nationalised industries or when there is a Private Bill. Yet this is a service which affects every one of us and it is rarely discussed in this House. I want to put in a plea for further accountability of the nationalised industries. I am a great believer in the nationalisation of our basic industries which, I think, have done a remarkably good job—including the Transport Commission—but there is one great weakness and that is the weakness in the construction of the Acts of Parliament that there is not sufficient accountability.
If I may say so with modesty and humility, I never found it difficult to deal with questions concerning the Post Office when I was Assistant Postmaster-General for five years. Many a thing that was going wrong was quickly put right. There are other ways of accountability. There is the Estimates Committee, there is the Public Accounts Committee. All those of us who believe fervently in nationalisation would welcome legislation for public accountability of the nationalised services, whichever Government was in power. Indeed, these are the only organisations which operate contrary to a constitutional doctrine, namely, they get supply without the redress of grievance, so I believe that the House must seriously consider this point.
I believe that the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation is far too big. The Minister deals with civil aviation, roads, railways, shipping, canals and also with London Transport. No one man can do all this and supervise it, no matter who he is. I am not criticising in a carping way, but the Department is

far too big and it will have to be broken down. The same applies to the British Transport Commission to a lesser degree.

Mr. William Shepherd: It certainly does.

Mr. Hobson: I have the highest personal regard for Sir Brian Robertson, but one man cannot run the Commission. I recall the days when Sir Josiah Stamp was chairman of the L.M.S. Railway and I was negotiating with him on power station matters in Stonebridge. We got what we wanted. Sir Josiah was always genial and friendly and I remember him saying, "Hobson, L.M.S. is too big for any one man". I say that the Transport Commission is too big for one man, because it deals with railways, docks, shipping, canals—all the multifarious properties owned by the Commission. One man cannot possibly control all these in the way they should be controlled, so that is another thing which must be looked at.

Mr. Arthur Holt: Can the hon. Member tell me how long he has held this view?

Mr. Hobson: For a long time, and if the hon. Member had done me the honour of listening when I was speaking of the nationalised industries he would have heard me advocating this. I am not like some members of the Liberal Party—I do not speak with two voices.

Mr. C. Howell: My hon. Friend does not speak very often, either.

Mr. Hobson: It is regrettable that this debate comes at the end of our Session. Many hon. Members would have liked some Parliamentary continuity in respect of the problems of British Railways, because there is a lot to be said. As a result, my remarks must be general. I apologise for this, but I assure hon. Members that just as I have been tied up with my little argument with the Minister about the Parliamentary timetable, so the House is concerned about railways, because of the Recess and now, indeed, because of a possible General Election.
First, I want to say some good things about the Transport Commission and the railways. I think that their catering is excellent in the dining cars and cheaper than anywhere else in the world. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Yeovil gave me my cue, because he gave the


number of restaurant cars run in Britain as compared with the rest of Britain. Let us give credit where it is due. If anyone wants a good bottle of Médoc, he should buy it in one of the dining cars of British Railways, for he will get it at a very reasonable price.
I pay tribute to British Railways for the cleanliness of their named trains. There has been a tremendous improvement since our last transport debate. I should like to see it extended to what I call the cross-country services. If this were done, there would be little room for criticism.
We must also give the railways 100 per cent. credit for the magnificent way in which they have developed their diesel local services. They are efficient and regular and, by and large, are timed to meet the public needs. They are a revenue earner. The Leeds-Bradford diesel service is excellent, with three trains an hour, heavily loaded. As a lover of the railways, that is what I want to see extended.
Having said that, however, I have some criticisms to make. I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren) and some of my other colleagues who are associated with the railway world about the necessity for closing certain branch lines. Hon. Members will laugh when I say that I am making a plea to save one of my local lines which is earmarked for closure, but I shall give good and, I hope, cogent reasons why the Keighley-Oxenhope line should remain open.
I believe that the Minister of Transport is a Yorkshireman.

Mr. Lindgren: I knew that there was something wrong with him.

Mr. Hobson: The Minister closed one of my local lines between Keighley and Halifax. We argued the case, but we lost. The Keighley-Oxenhope line is an entirely different proposition. I am told on the best authority that this branch line loses £1,500 a year. I believe that savings in station staff have been agreed with the railway unions which would halve that figure. Although there are not many trains on this line, it carries a heavy load of workers down from the Bronte country to Keighley to work. It is a push and pull service. It carries

quite a bit of heavy freight and coal up to Haworth and Oakworth. The service is a vital necessity in winter, because there are times of the year when snow prevents the bus services from operating.
It will be argued that there are guarded level crossings on the line, but there are not many trains. I suggest that there is no need for the guarded level crossings, because the use of "Caution" and "T" signs would obviate this. In this way, the losses on the Keighley—Oxenhope line could be translated into a profit. This is a branch line—and there are others elsewhere throughout the country—on which the losses are not great and where economies in the direction I have indicated would enable it to remain open.
I refuse to accept the doctrine that every line must pay for itself. If this were applied, the Great Central would be closed tomorrow. Money which was sunk into it when it was built between Manchester, Sheffield and Lincoln has been lost. To apply the principle that every line must pay for itself would mean the closing of many lines, including main lines. We should have the same outlook towards railway services as to bus services. The No. 11 route is a money spinner. The No. 226, around Willesden, is not, but it is equally necessary.
Many of our branch lines are essential and necessary. I am not prepared to give the Transport Commission or the Ministry of Transport carte blanche automatically to close down these branch lines. It is true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough said, that some lines should never have been built, but merely because the Ministry has pushed up its savings from £10 million to £20 million and £30 million there is a tendency to say that all branch lines which are not profitable should automatically be closed. That is wrong. I hope that the Minister will consider the situation from the viewpoint of public service.
I come now to the modernisation programme. I do not know where we are getting to. I do not know quite what we are after. I wonder sometimes whether the Transport Commission knows what it is after. Let me give some examples. In the modernisation of the main lines, some are to be electrified and some dieselised. Why have both? We are dieselising the North Eastern line out of King's Cross


and, at the same time, it is being electrified. Why not keep the steam locomotives? They did excellent service. Why are we doing it twice over? I am told that the Western Region will not be electrified, but will be dieselised.

Mr. Walter Monslow: Will my hon. Friend tell us what is the difference in cost between electrification and dieselisation?

Mr. Hobson: I am not prepared to do that. In my opinion, electrification is far more economical in the long run, as has been proved beyond peradventure by the Southern Region.

Mr. Nugent: The consideration is mainly one of density of operation. If the density of operation is heavy enough, electrification is best. If it is not, diesel is the next best.

Mr. Hobson: That has not been the experience in France, which has probably the most efficient railway service in the world. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I think so. In my view, there is no need for both systems. We should have gone straight away to electrification and kept the steam locomotives.
I am worried about the initial cost and the maintenance cost of diesel engines. It is no good making comparisons, as people sometimes do when calculating maintenance figures, with steam locomotives and including the boiler cleaning. That is not a real test. In the case of the diesel, the incidence of mechanical breakdowns is much higher, as they are bound to be by the very nature of the machine. Except for a steam turbine, it is impossible to have a simpler mechanical machine than a steam locomotive. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary inquires, he will find that, for dieseis, the maintenance cost is very heavy. That is what I am informed by members of my union who work on the job.
I would like to see electrification given the go-ahead. Diesels could be kept for the branch lines or cross-country lines, but not main lines. The Commission supports this view by the fact that it is electrifying the Manchester—London line and the King's Cross main lines, as well as those from Liverpool Street. The Commission cannot have it both

ways, because it also has diesels working on these lines. There is something wrong here and it should be looked at.
The Joint Parliamentary Secretary mentioned the proposed new underground line from Victoria. The Minister also has certain power stations under his direction. What is to be the future of Lots Road, Neasden and Greenwich? There has not been an extra kilowatt put in since early in the war. Against the national grid standard of 50 a 33⅓ cycle is used. The railways are already taking a lot of their current from the grid. Are they to be kept on? What is to be the source of power for this new underground line? These are problems which the Ministry must examine.
One annoyance from which all travellers on British Railways suffer is bad timekeeping. This wants looking at, particularly on trains out of King's Cross. What is wrong with trains on the Eastern and North Eastern Region? When was the Aberdonian last on time? Ten days ago the Queen of Scots Pullman was 75 minutes late. On Tuesday, the 8.23 out of Doncaster was five minutes ahead of time and had a splendid run down to "Ally Pally". What happened after that? There were about seven stops between Alexandra Palace and King's Cross. This bad timekeeping annoys the public more than anything else.
What method is adopted for dealing with this problem? Whatever one might say about the old company managers, in days gone by if a train was late the general manager bore down on the operating manager and asked why it was late and action was taken right down the line. The same thing must be done on British Railways. It is said that Sir Brian Robertson cannot do that because he is too occupied with other things. What is he paid for? People who are paid for accepting responsibility must accept it. That is a good doctrine. The Government ought to put pressure on British Railways to ensure good timekeeping.
I know about the difficulties in the renewal of stock and that sort of thing, but let us be fair about this. After all, the war has been over for fifteen years, and British Railways have had plenty of time to renew their stock. In France, bridges had to be rebuilt after the war. In


Western Germany the density of traffic is very high, but the trains run to time. It is the duty of the Government and the Transport: Commission to look into this problem. People who believe in nationalisation, as I do, want an efficiently run service. The only way in which we can improve the service is to criticise it, and I have no hesitation in criticising the Commission for bad timekeeping.
What is to be the policy of the Transport Commission? We have heard favourable reports of a special 100 m.p.h. service between Manchester and London. I hope that that service develops, but it is asking a lot, because that is a very high speed. Even in France, where there is not the high density of traffic that we have in this country, no service operates at that speed.
Train services, particularly between Leeds and King's Cross, should be speeded up. The journey used to be done in 2¾ hours, but it now takes 3½ hours and on Sundays the journey cannot be done in under 5 hours, except by Pullman. That is the sort of thing that ought to be looked at. I know the difficulties about reconstruction, but the speed factor is very important to those of us who want the railways to continue to expand.

Mr. Charles Pannell: I do not know whether my hon. Friend will believe it—I have not known it happen for a long time—but last Sunday morning the Pullman from King's Cross to Leeds arrived at its destination a minute before time.

Mr. Hobson: That is excellent. It may be the result of some people criticising the service. The faot still remains that on the North Eastern section timekeeping is bad.

Mr. D. Jones: I do not agree.

Mr. Hobson: I do not like the notice at King's Cross about delays to trains. The notice has been there for some weeks, saying that delays to suburban services are caused by dieselisation. That takes a bit of believing. One cannot believe that these teething troubles are confined to that one area.
I want to see a little prestige-building by British Railways. We must do something about St. Pancras and King's Cross. Improvements to railway stations in

other countries are made by Government grants and not by money provided by the railways. I do not like the appearance of Harwich, which is the first station I see on my return from abroad. Foreigners do not make the mistake of having stations which offend the eye. It is essential that our stations at which visitors from abroad arrive should be models. Other countries do it and so can we. Some attention ought to be paid to the appearance of the trains that go to the Continent. The stock is available to do it.
I have never lost my boyhood love of the railways and I never shall. I want to see the railway service improve. One of the ways in which we can help is by having more debates about the railways so that we can point out some of the things that affect the public. If we do that, in a few years' time we shall once again have a service which is the envy of the world.

6.25 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Thomas: I am sure that we all enjoyed the forthright and interesting speech of the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson). In view of his opening statement, it was a very courageous speech.
The hon. Gentleman started by saying that he thought my right hon. Friend's Department was much too big for one man to manage. Be that as it may, he went on to say that he thought that the British Transport Commission was too big an organisation to be effectively managed by one man. I entirely agree and I think that every hon. Member on this side of the House will agree with the hon. Gentleman, because he was really getting at the basis of the Opposition's policy.
The hon. Gentleman felt that the enormous growth that comes with integration gets out of manageable proportions. That was the essence of his speech and I hope that other hon. Members opposite will have the courage to be as honest as he has been, particularly in the light of the speech of the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), who, I am sorry to say, is not present at the moment. We all deprecate his personal attack on my right hon. Friend, but perhaps it covered a somewhat weak case.
I want to follow the line that the hon. Member for Keighley has taken up, because he has raised a point that I was going to touch upon. I am sure that all hon. Members must have given considerable thought to the problem of how big an industrial service like this can be—and I use the phrase "industrial service" because it is an industry and provides a service—before it gets out of manageable proportions. The Transport Commission, because of the vastness of its empire, has become too big for economy and efficiency. It is really an octopus.
The Commission is not only a railway operating undertaking, but a waterways and road transport undertaking. Further, it is an investment company. It holds shares in passenger transport concerns which it does not control. It holds shares in hotels and properties and, therefore, must have investment experts. These are all vast businesses in themselves. Would it not be in the interests of economy to divide up this industry? I am not suggesting that transport should be further denationalised.
I know that this impinges upon Socialist policy, but I should like to see British Road Services operating as a separate concern and competing with private enterprise road haulage. Analysing the accounts, one finds that a considerable amount of traffic is passed to British Road Services by the railways. It would be interesting to know whether that is done because it is part of the same concern, and what the difference in cost would have been if this traffic had been passed to private hauliers.

Mr. Monslow: Will the hon. Member say how, without integration, we can have either an efficient or a solvent transport industry in Britain?

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Member is saying that unless we have a complete monopoly we cannot have an efficient transport service. That is the real meaning of integration. As my right hon. Friend said in the debate in January, when we were discussing the Transport (Borrowing Powers) Bill, it is not merely the operators, the staff or the Commission who are being considered; there is such a person as the British consumer and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) pointed out, as a

result of competition road freight charges have been reduced by nearly 25 per cent.
As for the great modernisation plan, I want to refer to the point about capitalisation, which was raised by the hon. Member for Enfield, East and the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren). There is £1,500 million to be spent over the whole period of the plan. As the hon. Member for Wellingborough said, taking up a point that I made in January, we are here dealing with a tremendous capital of about £3,000 million. I agree that there must be some adjustment in the capital structure of this great concern. My hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil said that we ought to wait until we have crossed the line from the red to the black, and I agree with him.
No suggestion came from hon. Members opposite as to the form of the new structure, if there is to be one. I would ask them to bear in mind that the present structure, rigid as it is, is their responsibility.

Mr. Monslow: No.

Mr. Thomas: Yes. They nationalised the railways in their present form, with guaranteed stocks.
I want to make a suggestion which may not be palatable to some of my hon. Friends. The new capital investment which is now taking place must be funded at some time. I suggest that it should be held as an equity by the Government. I agree with those hon. Members who have said that the railway service, with the structure of the Commission as it is at present, can at no time sustain a capital as great as £3,000 million without a Government guarantee.
We are finding about £1,500 million over a period of years. What is the Commission contributing towards this capital investment? At present, everything is coming from the Treasury. The Commission has many investments which are neither ancillary to nor required for the Commission's transport operations, whether they be road, rail, waterways or whatever. The Commission has in its accounts land and surplus property not required for its operational use. Account No. VI-12, on page 118 of the Accounts, shows that this land and property is producing a net revenue


of over £4 million. That is more than a 14 per cent. return.
I suggest that my right hon. Friend, or the Treasury, or the Commission, should consider the revaluation of this property, whether it is Chiltern Court or land alongside the railway. In the light of the capital demands of the industry I think that the Commission should make some contribution. Why should not that property be revalued? At present, it is given the old book value. It should be revalued in the light of modern prices. The property market has been booming over the years. The Commission could take advantage of this fact and make its own contribution, no matter how small, towards the cost of the modernisation plan.
For many years some regions have been running their own refreshment services. A few years ago they bought out the Pullman Car Company. The extraordinary thing is that if a person goes to Brighton or Bournemouth he has to pay a surcharge for the pleasure of having his meal on the train, but if he is travelling on the Western Region he can walk into the dining-car free. That is a stupid and ridiculous thing. I have to pay a surcharge when I come up to town on Sunday night.

Mr. D. Jones: If the hon. Member travels on the South Wales Pullman, which leaves Paddington at 8.50 in the morning on Sundays, he will have to pay precisely the same charge

Mr. Thomas: The hon. Member is labouring under a misapprehension. A traveller does not pay a surcharge if he goes into a restaurant car which is run directly by the Commission, but he does pay if he goes into a Pullman Car Company car. I know. I have to pay when I travel up to town on Sunday night.

Mr. Monslow: The hon. Member always has paid.

Mr. Thomas: Yes, but hon. Members opposite are talking about integration and standardisation. Where is it?
Some of my hon. Friends might not think that I should make this point, but I think that it is a ridiculous situation, not only in regard to the surcharge paid by the passengers but also because men

doing the same sort of job receive different rates of pay according to the kind of dining car in which they work, and the region in which they work. The whole situation is anomalous and absurd, and I do not regret having drawn attention to it. There should be a proper levelling up of standards and labour conditions. I know it may be said that private interests are concerned in this case, but in view of the fact that the trains are run by the Commission those private interests should be bought out.
In moving the Amendment the hon. Member for Enfield, East blamed the Government for the heavy deficits which the Commission faces today. That was the chief point of his speech. But he cannot really say that with sincerity, in the light of the recent world recession and after the debates on the economic situation which took place in this House just before Whitsun, because it was then revealed that during the recession this country was better placed than any other in the world. The hon. Gentleman cannot deny that the vast reduction in the revenue of the Commission over the past twelve months is not due to the competition from private industry to which he objects, but, in the main, is due to the setback in basic industries such as steel—which is now recovering—and coal. The setback in the coal industry is not due, as the hon. Gentleman knows, to Government policy, but to the fact, if I may use the words of my right hon. Friend in a previous debate, that the gain of oil over coal has been purely on a price factor.
Like other Amendments that we have debated in the past few days, I believe that this Amendment will be defeated, and with a bigger majority even than was secured against the Amendment which we debated last night. That will reflect the justification of the policy of my right hon. Friend and the energetic manner in which the Government have dealt with the problems of transport in this country.

6.52 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Holt: The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) referred to the capital reorganisation of the Commission and twice the Joint Parliamentary Secretary referred to the Amendment to the


Government Motion in the names of my hon. Friends and myself. I had not intended to present the case fully in support of the Amendment as I do not think omnibus speeches in the middle of a transport debate serve a very useful purpose, particularly if they are made by back benchers. I wish to discuss the Transport Tribunal and the transport users' consultative committees.
On the question of control and public accountability I have always maintained, even as far back as the debates on the 1953 Act, that any move in the direction of regional accountability and responsibility would result in the more efficient running of the railways. The Government have made a move in that direction by setting up area boards, but they have not gone very far. It would add to the efficiency of our railways, and ultimately to the understanding by Parliament of the relative efficiency of the different regions, if regional accountability could be achieved.
When such accountability has been secured, and though they would still be nationalised, I see no reason why the regional bodies should not be further separated from the Commission. They might even raise their own money in the same way as we advocate should be done by local gas boards which are already separately accountable. That would be getting back to the system on which the railways were run before they were nationalised without actually denationalising them.
From the point of view of Ministerial responsibility this presents a difficult problem. No solution is yet apparent to the problem of how the nationalised industries should be made responsible to this House. A Select Committee which has been sitting almost continuously has still not arrived at a solution, nor do I know of any solution which has been advanced from anywhere else. I suggest that during the interim period, while the reorganisation programme is being carried out, there is a great deal to be said for the Minister really exercising the powers which he already possesses—it need not be necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to take more powers—to see that the policy of the Government, whatever it may be, is implemented.
Too often are we presented with plans for the saving of this or that. The Commission sends letters to the Minister to the effect that it proposes to do this or that with the result that millions of pounds will be saved. But that saving does not materialise. I think that the Minister rather likes the idea of being regarded as a tough character, and here is something which he could be tough about. He need not interfere in the detailed running of the railways or of the Transport Commission, but if the policy is to cut out unremunerative services, the right hon. Gentleman should see to it that they are cut out.
I remember in 1952, in one of the first debates on transport in which I took part, the current Report of the Commission stated that the suggestion that great economies could be achieved from cutting out unremunerative services and closing branch lines was an exaggeration. Little by little, more unremunerative services have been cut out. But when we look at the Commission's reappraisal of its modernisation plan we find that in paragraph 24 it states that between 1954 and 1958 the total route mileage of British Railways declined by only 300 miles, but that in the next four years it is expected that about 1,800 miles will be cut. Even at this late stage, and quite apart from whether anyone agrees with the policy of cutting out unremunerative lines, that is the avowed policy of the Government and the Commission. It is the implication of the 1953 Act because that Act does not make sense if the Commission is expected to go on operating unremunerative services. So that at this late stage the important fact is admitted that little has been done about cutting unremunerative services although in the next four years it is proposed that a great deal shall be done. We have heard so often from the Commission about what it will do in the future, but it never delivers the goods. All it delivers are bigger deficits.
I should like to see the Minister of Transport "deliver the goods" to Parliament. I should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman say, "This is the policy and I shall see that it is carried out. If it is not, I shall resign." Only if the Minister has a clear policy which he is determined to see carried out shall we ever reduce


this deficit even to manageable proportions.
On capital reorganisation, the hon. Member for Canterbury suggested that the new money that has been provided for the reorganisation scheme should be taken up by the Government as equity capital, implying that at some time the railways would make a profit and that the Government would then get dividend on the money. The hon. Gentleman immediately followed up with a sentence which implied that he did not think the railways would make a profit because the burden of the old interest charges and the new were far too great; the railways could never stand it. It was slightly disingenuous of him, therefore, to talk about providing new capital as equity because sometimes the Government might get a dividend.
We ought to deal with this matter as it would be dealt with if the railways belonged to a private enterprise company. Everybody knows what happens. If a company gets into serious difficulties and is almost bankrupt, somebody may say, "If we put a lot of new money into this business there is actually some good trade to be done." The people who formerly had their money in the company have lost it and the equity shares are worth nothing. There is then a great reorganisation scheme, in which the equity shares may get a little. The £1 shareholders may be told that their shares are worth 6d. All the new benefits created go to the people who are putting in the new money.
Surely this is the way to deal with the railway interest problem when the reorganisation scheme is carried out. I would not care to back this scheme at the moment, but if I felt there were drive behind the efforts to make modernisation get on apace and to attract new business, as well as to cut out unremunerative services, I would say, "This is a proposition". The House could then consider the complete obliteration of the interest charges on the old capital as far as the B.T.C. is concerned, which has ceased to have any market value because the business could not pay a dividend.
There is no doubt that the 1953 Act swung the Commission over from the Labour Party's policy of an integrated transport system and an absolute

monopoly to the idea of a freely competitive system. The only weakness was that it was not free. Various anomalies were left by the 1953 Act, and they have bedevilled the activities of the Commission ever since and have affected the mind of the Commission. The Commission on many occasions still thinks of itself as providing a nationwide railway service and only cuts out unremunerative services with great reluctance. It is taking a great deal to change that attitude of mind of the Commission to a competitive one, in which the railways are ven- much up against fierce competition from other forms of transport.
If the policy of the Government is still that of pursuing this line, the Government must carry it out to its logical conclusion. I would call attention to the Transport Tribunal. Although the 1953 Act gave the British Transport Commission greater freedom with charges it still required, as before, that its charges schemes went to the Transport Tribunal. We have recently had the extraordinary case of the British Transport Commission Charges Scheme, 1958, being presented to the Tribunal in September last year and still not approved by the Tribunal. There was an interim decision, which meant precisely nothing, on 8th May this year. So far as I have been able to ascertain, nothing more has happened, except that there has been one more sitting of the Transport Tribunal.
The interim decision was released to the world on 11th May, and all the daily papers took up a very critical attitude on the following day. The Times and the Manchester Guardian had very critical leading articles on the whole set-up of the Transport Tribunal and its relationship to the British Transport Commission. The Manchester Guardian started off its leading article by saying:
The Transport Tribunal's reluctance to allow the railways to run their passenger services as a business has made a serious financial situation much worse.
We know that constant delay has taken place not only on this occasion but in previous cases, as the result of which the Transport Commission has been unable to get a rapid readjustment in charges.
If we were running an integrated monopoly there might be something to be said for continuing with a committee


like the Transport Tribunal, but in a competitive system in which much more transport is already carried on the roads, both in freight and passengers, it is not logical any longer to say to the British Transport Commission, "You must act like a business firm; your deficit is absolutely monstrous", and then hamper it so—

Mr. Monslow: rose—

Mr. Holt: I cannot give way. The hon. Member can make the point in a speech later, should he catch Mr. Speaker's eye.
The time has come for the House to look at this position and for the Transport Tribunal to be wound up so as to allow the railways to make charges as they think fit. Some hon. Members fear they would use their freedom to make fantastic charges, but if private firms are concerned to keep the goodwill of their customers that is not the kind of thing they would do in the usual run of affairs. The British Transport Commission will wish to keep the goodwill of its customers, whether for carrying their freight or their persons. There is no reason for us to be concerned about what might happen in equity between one firm and another, or between people, if the British Transport Commission were allowed to fix its own charges. This would require amending legislation by the Government—

Mr. Nugent: I have been making myself more expert in the matter of the Transport Tribunal before I interrupted the hon. Gentleman. I would now remind him that the Transport Tribunal in fact approved the new charges scheme on 8th July. The hon. Member hardly did it credit when he said that it had not reached a decision.

Mr. Holt: I am grateful for that, but I tried to check this. I checked it in the Library and the document is not there. I did not recollect that I had seen it in the papers, but I am very glad to hear it. Presumably it means that the increase in rate per mile which the Commission wishes to charge for passenger services can now be put into force and the Commission can have greater scope to charge a higher rate on unremunerative services.
I do not think the Transport Commission has asked for anything like enough in this connection. Take a case where it is suggested that a branch line should be closed. There is a station, not in my constituency, but at Entwistle in the constituency of the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke), who, I know, is very much concerned about it. There is a branch line to it which provides the only transport for that village. The nearest bus service is about two miles away. It might well be that people in that village would be willing to pay not just 50 per cent. more, but twice or three times the normal passenger charge if they could still use that station, but the Transport Commission has not the authority to make such high maximum charges in special cases of that kind. If a service is completely unremunerative the Commission is forced to close the service down. I cannot see that it has any other option, but, if it had powers to make much greater charges, or special charges, in these cases, it might well be that such stations could be kept open and not be unremunerative but serve the needs of special localities.
If the Transport Tribunal were to go, I think there is also a case for saying that the transport users' consultative committees should go. They are rather different from the Transport Tribunal in the sense that they have been most cooperative with the Commission. In the last annual Report for the year ending in 1958 that comes out clearly, and it also comes out in the two Reports we have before us today. The time for consideration of closing branch lines, and so on, has been greatly reduced.
The real trouble about the consultative committees is that attention is distracted from the proper activities of the staff, particularly on British Railways. If people have complaints to make they seem to make them to anyone but the consultative committees. They write to Members of Parliament. I have a long letter from the headmaster of Bolton Grammar School, who had a lot of trouble earlier this year over a party he was taking abroad and failed to get back to Bolton on time. He wrote not to the consultative committee but to the public relations officer of British Railways. It is the job of the public relations officer, the Stationmaster, the


regional manager and so on to have most intimate contact with their customers, the users of the railways. It is to them that complaints should go.
One sometimes cannot help feeling when the holiday season comes and the railways are suddenly faced with great crowds of people that they look upon it as an awful nuisance instead of as a great opportunity to achieve increased revenue for the railways. They consider that it raises a lot of problems and is very tiresome. This attitude stems from having things like users' consultative committees. The idea is that any problems should be referred to the committee. If we want the railways to operate like a business enterprise their contact with their customers should be exactly the same as that of a private business enterprise with its customers.
If we were to do these two things and really give the railways the freedom we are always talking about—give them the opportunity to operate as a commercial enterprise—I have not the slightest doubt that they would greatly reduce their deficit. I do not think that by any means they would get it down to nothing without a capital reorganisation. How that ought to be dealt with I have indicated, but I think it important that the reorganisation and firm direction of the policy of the British Transport Commission must come first, before the capital reorganisation.

7.15 p.m.

Sir Kenneth Pickthorn: I have, for me, a rather dreadful confession to make. I think that for the first time I am conscious that I am not trying to contribute anything to the main argument, nor to say anything of any importance, even seeming to me very important, with reference to earlier speeches.
I want to raise a point, in itself comparatively small, but one which I think ought to be raised; and about this point I make no kind of assertion, much less a criticism. By the accident of chronology, I have known about it only in the last few days. I do not therefore know enough to make assertions, but this is the last occasion to ask questions on the matter, especially as I think it will be a wholly accomplished fact—I was going to say before we meet again, if

it is "we"—before some set of people meet again here at any rate.
This is the point I want to put. Several hon. Members have referred to the closing of passenger facilities, the closing of railway stations or whole branches. I am not concerned to argue that that has not been in each case for all I know to the contrary rightly done, and I am quite clear that in some cases, of course, it must be rightly done. What I am inviting the House to do is to turn its attention to the comparison between closure in the case of passenger facilities, stations and lines, and closure in the case of freight-carrying facilities and, most especially, the closure, or partial closure, of marshalling yards, locomotive yards and, in this particular case to which I refer, the partial closing of a tunnel.
The proposal is that a tunnel which badly needs repair should be repaired as a single-track tunnel instead of a double-track tunnel. I am not suggesting that there is any mistake being made there. I am not sure enough about that. Nor am I suggesting that any avoidable hardship is being inflicted. What I want first to know, and ask my right hon. Friend if he will be good enough to consult Sir Brian Robertson and others at that kind of level about, is whose duty is it in the case of the closing or partial closing of a tunnel, or marshalling yard where the marshalling yard is necessary and not being replaced by another—in either case—to be reassured that there is no strategic reason involved against the closure or partial closure?
With every respect to my right hon. Friend, it does not seem to me that the Minister of Transport is the person best qualified to deal with that. Indeed, if the Minister of Transport were Field Marshal Lord Montgomery, I should think that he would make a mistake in the exercise of that office in deciding the question which I am putting to the House. This is a question which has not been put in earlier debates or in earlier Reports and which ought now to be put.
There is a question connected with it to which, again, I do not know the answer. The men who came to see me about the Colwick-Netherfield marshalling yard and the Mapperley Tunnel were certainly qualified trade unionists. They were the qualified spokesmen of


their unions and very experienced men. They were persuaded, it seems to me incredibly—I may have misunderstood them, but I do not think I did—that where a marshalling yard is closed down or, as in this case, partially closed down, it is impossible to move the labour as it is graded across a regional boundary. I hope that I am being clear.
The line is drawn in the middle of my constituency between the Midland Region and the Eastern Region of the railways. I find to my great surprise that that is the view held by these very experienced and responsible trade unionists, who live in a railway community—for Colwick-Netherfield is as much a railway community, almost, as is Crewe or Swindon. They were persuaded that one of the difficulties would be that 200 or so people might be redundant. I said to them that that might be true but that they had to understand that it did not mean that there were 200 people fewer in employment; perhaps there would be 200 more employed, for example, at Retford. The answer which I was given to that was that that might be so but that it would be difficult to move men, except at the lowest grades, from one region into another.
To me that was a new thought and a new difficulty which I had not heard of before. I should not have thought that it could be true, but I ask my right hon. Friend to make sure whether there is some agreement, explicit or implicit, between management and unions or otherwise which, in the case of the closing of tunnels or marshalling yards, makes it difficult to move men at the grades to which they are accustomed across a regional boundary. As far as I know, the point has not been specifically raised in the House before, and it ought to be carefully considered.

7.23 p.m.

Mr. Thomas Steele: I feel that the hon. Member for Carlton (Sir K. Pickthorn) probably misunderstood the people who made representations to him, because I imagine from my experience that no such difficulty would arise if there were redundancy. It may be that the men themselves felt that the difficulties arose from having to move their homes.

Sir K. Pickthorn: No. They understood this point as well.

Mr. Steele: I am still not clear that there should be any difficulty, because one of the things which happened when we nationalised the railways was that, on promotion, men could be moved from one country to another. It might not be generally known, but I am a station-master on leave of absence, and each fortnight I receive from the British Transport Commission a document indicating the vacancies which occur, for which sometimes I make application.

Mr. D. Jones: I would point out that in his maiden speech the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) said that he left the service of the Western Region because there was inter-regional promotion.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: I did not say that. I said that inter-regional promotion was a bad thing at the higher grades.

Mr. Steele: I ought to continue my speech, because I have already suffered from so many interruptions from other hon. Members. The situation was reached in which I felt that perhaps I might not be called to speak at all.
I agree that the hon. Member for Carlton made an interesting point in the first matter which he raised. That is something which ought to be considered, but it raises a problem to which I will come later in my speech. It is a problem which faces the Transport Commission in the keeping open of lines which might be necessary for strategic reasons or the keeping open of branch lines to serve the public need. It is the problem of how to finance these matters. I believe that if a line has to remain open for strategic reasons, the Government ought to say so and to make a contribution to the Commission to enable it to be done.
My hon. Friend the Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson), who is not in the Chamber, and the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas) apparently thought that the Transport Commission was far too big. I had hoped to interrupt the hon. Member for Canterbury to request him to ask my hon. Friend the Member for Keighley whether he thought that the Post Office was too big. We all know the interest which my hon. Friend takes in the Post


Oflice. I am sure that if the House said to him that the Post Office as an organisation was far too big and that something ought to be done about it, he would be the first to object.
I will deal with some of the other matters which arose as I proceed, but I begin by saying that I was delighted that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary paid such a high tribute both to the Commission and to those who work for British Railways. It was good to hear him say that it is essential to the national life that the railways be maintained, and that we need a modern railway service. I agree with those words. He indicated that he was painting a favourable picture about passenger services, where he had an optimistic outlook, and that he was not so happy about freight services. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies), who made a powerful contribution to the debate and whose first-class analysis of the situation answered the points made by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary.
I do not envy the job of the Minister of Transport in a Conservative Government. I can understand why he sometimes becomes irritable, argumentative and angry, because he has an impossible task to perform. I often wonder whether people understand that transport is not a productive industry. We have a certain volume of goods to be transported in the country, and they will be transported by road, rail or sea.
But the amount and volume of traffic are dependent purely on the national economy. If we achieve efficiency and modernisation of one section of transport, that does not necessarily mean that we will increase the volume of traffic. It only means that we might transfer the carrying of those goods or passengers from one method of transport to another. The Estimates Committee criticised the Minister recently on his road programme. My main criticism of the Minister is that in this matter neither he nor the Government appear to have any national policy for transport as a whole.
What will be the result of this Government's transport policy? First, in ten years' time we will have roads which will enable traffic to move on them, but those roads were necessary perhaps ten years ago. We are engaging in heavy

capital expenditure on the railways, but the railways will have a decreasing volume of traffic. Therefore, we shall have overcrowded roads and under-used railways. It seems to me that the Minister is not a Minister of Traffic, but is, in fact, a Minister of Bedlam.
I live beside the main Glasgow-Carlisle road. The volume of goods traffic using that road has to be seen to be believed. They are not only long-distance road hauliers, but C-licence holders as well. What is the average man's attitude to what he sees on the roads? Without thinking a great deal about it he says, "This traffic should not be on the roads at all." Anyone who believes that a motorists goes on the roads today to derive any pleasure from motoring is living in a fool's paradise, because the roads today are terribly overcrowded, while the railways are not being used to capacity.
It may be that the Minister will say that C licences are being used economically, but the number of C licences has risen from 300,000 in 1946 to over 1 million in 1958 without any great work being done on our roads to enable them to travel.
There has been a great deal of criticism of the Transport Commission and of the closing of branch lines and country stations. The reappraisal indicates that this is to be speeded up. I agree with what the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said. I was a Stationmaster at a country station. I had the job of trying to find traffic for the railways when they were privately owned. I know the problems with which we were faced. We must recognise the changing habits of the people and what those changing habits mean.
In an agricultural community today farmers' feeding stuffs come by road. Farmers' livestock travel by road. The old conception of a farmer taking his livestock along the road to the station is no longer possible, and, in any case, the farmer does not have the staff to do it. Further, when the farmer and his family go anywhere they travel by car. This is done not because of heavy charges made by the Transport Commission, but because it is convenient. Agriculture today is the most heavily subsidised industry in the country. The standard of life of a farming community


today is maintained because of the agricultural subsidies. I do not disagree with it, but it is a fact that must be faced.
If a local shopkeeper has no customers coming to his shop, the shop very soon closes and that is the end of it. Customers and traffic are not coming to country stations. The first questions I asked those who come to me complaining are, "When did you last travel on the railway? When did you last use it? When did you last send any traffic by rail?" The answers I receive are surprising. Therefore, we must face the fact and admit it.
The problem caused by the increased number of C-licence holders is a real one. I agree with my hon. Friends that many C-licence holders transport their goods in that way for prestige purposes, not because it is economic, but because of the advertising value associated with it. Another disturbing feature is that it is not only private enterprise which is using C licences. It disturbs me to see other nationalised industries, such as the National Coal Board, gas boards and others, building for themselves great transport fleets which require staffing. Private industry is doing the same.
All this is resulting in heavy overcrowding on the roads. This trend, which is continuing and looks as if it will continue, must be seriously considered. It is not a question of what controls we will use. It is not a question of what one party says or another party says. The simple facts are that our roads are overcrowded and our railways are not fully used.
Industrialists must do a lot of hard thinking about this. If they are to increase the numbers of their C-licence vehicles and if they are to go out and use the roads as they are doing, they must pay more for this privilege. The heavy vehicles are the ones which do damage to the roads and slow up traffic. If C-licence holders continue to do this, they must pay more for the privilege, not only for using the roads in this way, but for the increasing number of accidents which are taking place and which are beginning to be looked on as normal to our road use.
We in Scotland are particularly vulnerable. We have large areas which have to be served by public transport. It is only

natural that we believe that it can be done only with some kind of co-ordination of transport. Unless something is done, many of those areas will be left without any transport at all, because the populous areas are no longer as profitable as they used to be. Both the railways and the bus companies, whether private or public, are finding, again, that with the changing habits of the people—television and other things—the traffic offered is getting less and less, and that unless they increase their charges or cut out some of their uneconomic running they will be "in the red." The private car, too, is one of the big factors.
We have to face up to these things, and so have those people who ask for branch lines and country stations to be kept open. We have to ask ourselves: is the Transport Commission to be a public service, or has it, as the Act says, to pay its way taking one year with another? If it is to be a public service, then we, in Parliament, must take this decision and, in taking it, must realise that it means that we have to provide the money to enable it to be done.
I must add, as a railway employee, that I and my fellow workers disagree violently with the placing of this responsibility on the Commission, and the workers in the industry then being victimised to the extent that their wages and salaries have to be affected because the Commission is compelled to keep open uneconomic routes.
During the passage of the 1953 Act those of us on this side representing Scottish constituencies put down an Amendment asking the Government to keep Scotland out of that Measure altogether. We were defeated, but it should be borne in mind that our suggestion was supported by prominent businessmen in Scotland, and by the Scotsman, the national newspaper of Scotland. We pointed out the special problems arising in Scotland, and we were promised a Committee to examine questions of common interest to transport undertakings, etc.
Ultimately, on 7th September, 1956, this Committee was set up. As I say, its function was to examine transport in Scotland and to arrange for its coordination not only with the nationalised interests but with interests outside. The


committee had as its chairman Mr. C. D. Shaw. May I ask the Minister how often this Committee has met? It is unnecessary for him to make a note of that question, because I can tell him the answer. The Committee has met only once. Nothing has happened. Having met, the Committee realised that it was set an impossible task and that there was nothing it could do. It was a Committee without power. I said at the time and I think that there is now evidence to prove it, that this was, in fact, only a piece of Tory window-dressing. It is an example of the generally irresponsible attitude adopted by the Government to transport.
It is generally agreed that the reorganisation of capital is necessary, but I want now to say a word about the staff who will be concerned in the reappraisal, modernisation and rationalisation of British Railways. I think that the Commission has appreciated, as did the Parliamentary Secretary, what all this means to the men concerned. It is a difficult problem, and, as I know, the unions have approached it with rather different views. Everyone appreciates that there are difficulties, but the difficulties in Scotland are rather greater than those south of the Border.
We have had debates in this House on industry and employment in Scotland. Our problems are greater. When work is available, employment in Scotland reaches a lower figure than that in England. When unemployment is with us, it is higher than it is south of the Border. It is not only a question of the Commission looking upon the problem sympathetically, and saying that though there may be redundancies there may not be any loss of jobs. There will be loss of opportunity for young people to become apprentices, and at this time, with the greatly increased numbers of school leavers, this is, indeed, a serious problem.
Rightly or wrongly, the men concerned are seriously perturbed about the present situation. Some of their fears may be unfounded, they may misunderstand the situation, but I should like to draw the Minister's attention to what is said about the Commission's workshops in page 44 of the reappraisal plan. It states:
The Commission's policy for the future will be to continue to use their own workshops

for the manufacture of equipment and components for which they are laid out as well as for the repair of all equipment.
Unfortunately, there is an understandable proviso here:
This is subject to the proviso that their costs are competitive.
From among the men in Cowlairs and in St. Rollox—two shops that will be particularly affected—my hon. Friends have had a deputation. The men do not seem to be aware of the terms of the promise in this policy statement. I understand the terms, and appreciate them, but I hope that the Minister will have a word with the Commission about this, and ask it to make clear to the men in those two shops just what it means—and make it clear not only to the union representatives but to the men themselves just exactly what it means I am sure that the men will be co-operative, but it is important that those who are to be affected like this should understand the problem. If the Commission's attitude is that all the repair work on carriages, wagons and locomotives is to be done in the raiway workshops, I hope and trust that it will make a clear statement to that effect to the workmen concerned.
I conclude by saying that so far as the men themselves are concerned, I appreciate their problems and difficulties. The Transport Commission has said to them that no one will become redundant in the sense that he will have to leave the railway service, but that he may have to go to some other job which he has not been doing in the past. I say that they should treat that offer with respect, and should treat it seriously, because I and my hon. Friends on this side of the House know only too well that the industrial situation in Scotland at present is such that any offer of employment, whether it be along the lines of work to which they have been accustomed in the past or not, is not to be sneered at.
The situation arising particularly in the shipping and other industries means that the job itself is likely to be tremendously important in the next few years. I say this not in any party spirit, because I think it is too important, but even if we do have a Labour Government, or, with the best intentions in the world, a Conservative Government, the situation in Scotland is such that the


remedy for the bad location of industry and the bringing of the improvements we all want will not be easy for any Government which has the job to do.

7.51 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: As there are a large number of hon. Members who still wish to speak, I shall endeavour to be as brief as I possibly can. As is not unusual in debates on transport, we have ranged over a large number of subjects, many of them concerning small points. As has happened before in such debates, there is the danger that we might lose sight of the wood for the trees, an exception being the speech of the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele), who kept the facts in front of him all the time.
I should like to recapitulate very shortly what seem to me to be the fundamental points in regard to the transport situation at the present time. To begin with, I do not agree with the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West that transport is in any sense a cake of a fixed size, or that transport is dependent on the economic condition of the country at any given moment. That is, of course, a limiting factor, but only within a very wide range, because people travel or send their goods from one point to another for one or other of two reasons. It is either because of the cheapness or the convenience of the service offered, and if the service offered is so cheap or is convenient enough, the mere existence of the service creates its own demand and multiplies the amount of traffic which it is necessary to serve.
The main feature of the transport situation in this country at present is that British Railways are not paying their way, and the reason why they are not doing so is not merely that they were not modernised before the war, during the war or in the years immediately after the war, though modernisation is a contributing factor. That is not the main reason for the decline of British Railways. As the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) pointed out in his speech, the decline of railways is common throughout the world, despite the changing pattern of transport in many different countries. It is always very dangerous to compare conditions in one country with those in another, but there is a common

factor in that railways in most countries—practically everywhere—are declining. In this country at least the decline is certainly not mainly due to the competition of public road hauliers or bus companies.
That is strikingly confirmed in two paragraphs in the reappraisal Report of the British Transport Commission. In paragraph 78, referring to goods traffic and competition from road haulage, it is stated:
The main competition is not so much from public road hauliers, important as that is, as from the increased tendency of traders to carry their own goods.
and in paragraph 82 referring to passenger traffic, after stating that competition had increased, the Report says:
Passenger traffics … have been well maintained … notwithstanding greatly increased competition from three main directions; first from the sustained growth in the numbers of private cars, motor cycles and scooters
and so on. As the railways are not paying their way, assuming that we, as the guardians of the public purse and of the nationalised industry, will have to find the money out of the pockets of the taxpayer, and assuming that we are not prepared for that condition to continue, there are only three policies which could possibly be followed.
Two of them involve modernisation, but mean something else as well, while the third does not. It is a very simple, but not a very practical one. It is the one that is proposed by the Railway Conversion League. It says quite simply that, as the roads now carry 56 per cent. of the goods carried and the railways only 44 per cent., and the percentage is increasing in favour of the roads, we should accelerate and encourage what is already a natural and inevitable tendency and pull up the railway lines and use railway land for building roads. That is a beautifully simple solution, but I do do not think that any practical person would agree with it.
To begin with, there would be very formidable engineering difficulties in the conversion of railways to roads, particularly in regard to the clearances of over-bridges and in the maintenance of the weight-carrying capacity of the railway embankments, most of which would have to be rebuilt. Apart altogether from that, the transfer on to the roads of the 1,100 million railway passengers who


make journeys every year would make absolute chaos of my right hon. Friend's road programme and would make the rapid improvement of roads almost impossible.
Writing off that solution, there are two others. There is, first of all, the policy of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, which may be described as the integration of road and rail transport, of which the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, West spoke. That involves some sort of super-planner, who will make full use of all existing facilities, but the use of the existing facilities would not be enough, because the integration of all the existing facilities would still produce a concern that does not pay.
If we look at the consolidated working results shown in the accounts of the British Transport Commission, we see that the gross receipts of British Road Services are about £50 million net, and, after deducting working expenses, about £2 million net. Even if those receipts were very much increased, even if they were doubled or trebled, the receipts from British Road Services would still not be anywhere near enough to make any impact on the losses on the railway services.
Moreover, if we refer again to the paragraphs of the reappraisal plan which I have quoted, it will be seen that the Commission itself says that its main competitors are not the public road services, the hauliers, or the bus companies. In other words, the mere integration of public services would not be enough. There would still be very great difficulties. Unless hon. Members opposite are prepared to go much further than saying that they will increase the charge for the C licences, which was the policy suggested by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Lindgren), and are prepared to set up what would virtually be a police State—[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."]—and select a few people to carry their own goods in their own lorries or themselves in their own cars, integration will not work, and it is no use trying to pretend that it would. That is the second possible policy.
The third policy is that which has been advocated by my right hon. Friend, and that is to help transport to find its own level. Like water, it does so if not

obstructed. If we cut down the excessive amount of rail services to a more reasonable size and build more roads so that the public can, if they so wish, use public vehicles or their own vehicles on these roads, we can encourage fair competition between the various forms of transport. To run such a policy means the use of a good deal of public money in order to modernise the railways so that they can play their part, but there is no reason why that policy should not succeed. We have an example in a neighbouring country, Holland, where that has happened. Mr. Den Hollander has made a good job of modernising the Dutch railways and by concentrating on the most convenient services and paying traffics he has produced a railway which is paying its way. The British Transport Commission has had the advantage of his advice and I have no doubt that the Commission has taken many of his ideas. Certainly one can see very great progress being made in the British modernisation plan.
There are still many services, both goods and passenger, which the public would, no doubt, find more convenient if the services were rationalised properly. But this involves fair competition with the hauliers, of course, and I think there is some case for the question of fuel taxation as between the road and the railway services to be reconsidered, because it is rather odd that one of these comparable services is paying tax and the other is not. The most reasonable arrangement would be to equalise the tax, but that, no doubt, is a matter for another debate.
In addition, one would have to make sure that the competitive rates which now can be charged by the railways as against the road hauliers are genuine rates and not merely rates which take advantage of subsidies from the taxpayer. Given those two points, I can see no reason why there should not be free and fair competition between road and rail, and why both sides of the industry should not make a reasonable profit.
This does not at all affect the main proposition that in the national interest it is a good thing to continue the modernisation of the railways. In view of the striking results which have already been achieved, we may hope that in the not too distant future the predictions of the Commission will be justified and that


the account will be squared, as has been done in Holland. I certainly see no reason to grudge public funds for the further improvement of the railways.
I am very glad to welcome the Accounts of the British Transport Commission and the reappraisal of its modernisation scheme.

8.4 p.m.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) because he speaks with great experience on railway matters, having spent his life in the somewhat rarified higher level of the railways. I will comment on some of his observations as I proceed.
I want to deal with the reappraisal plan and not with the accounts. I welcome, as no doubt we all do, the speeding up of electrification and modernisation of the railways, but this whole problem raises four rather important general issues. The first is railway finance. The second is the nature of the railway undertaking and whether it is to be regarded as a normal commercial business undertaking or a service provided in the public interest. The third, which affects my constituency considerably since I represent the railway town of Crewe, is the position of the railway workers. The fourth matter is the question of road haulage.
I believe, with another hon. Member who has spoken, that it is high time we took a realistic view of the finances of the railways. Their position is quite different from ordinary private enterprise companies, and that fact is referred to in paragraph 117 of the reappraisal Report. The Commission says:
… Central Charges are both fixed and inflexible, consisting as they do mainly of interest on borrowings. In good years and in bad years this interest must be paid in full; there is no equity capital. Fluctuations are inescapable in a business with a high proportion of fixed costs, especially when adjustments of charges take as long as they do. The Commission"—
and this is to be noted—
as a newly constituted undertaking, started without any reserves available to take the shock of fluctuations in their financial fortunes and they have not since been allowed to build up any such reserves.
That view is supported by the Manchester Guardian in a recent article on 24th July which said:

… the Commission is … right to claim that its existing financial burdens should be reconsidered. It is now inconceivable"—
and I agree with this—
that the past deficits will ever be repaid; and the existence of this huge liability can only undermine morale. The sensible answer is to wipe the slate clean.
That would give the Transport Commission a chance.
I now turn to the second matter which naturally worries the Commission in connection with the whole of its transactions, and that is the question which it raised as to whether this is to be a service or a normal commercial undertaking. In paragraph 62 of the reappraisal Report the Commission says:
A matter of first importance is the rôle which the Commission's various transport services by rail and by road will be expected to play as part of the transport industry of the country. On the one hand the services are asked to compete, and they must accordingly be permitted, both by Government and by general and business public opinion, to act like a normal commercial undertaking . . 
But they are not. As has been pointed out earlier today, time after time Her Majesty's present Government have interfered and have prevented the Commission from taking the steps which any ordinary businessman conducting his own business would have been allowed to take.
I remember the famous occasion of the London County Council elections when the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) refused to allow fares to be raised when the Commission had made out a complete case for raising the fares. He was playing party politics with the Commission. [Interruption.] If hon. Members were not here, I cannot go through all the cases, but my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) mentioned a number of them in his speech.
The Report goes on to say:
On the other hand, the Commission's services are often expected to be guided primarily by the public interest. Many of these services represent facilities which are essential to the life of a modern society, and without them the extremes of peak demand and of demand which is thinly spread could not be provided for. These two approaches, the commercial and the often unprofitable public service, frequently conflict, and though the economic benefits to the community of the latter are often substantial, these benefits"—
I ask hon. Members to note these words—
are not reflected in the revenue account of the Commission".


As a result, the railway workers, when they apply for wage increases, have their claims levelled against the money in the till, but the money is not in the till, not because they have not done a good job but because, in the public interest and as a public service, they have provided facilities that do not pay, cannot pay and never will pay. That is a point that must be considered.
The Times, in an article last December on this very subject, said:
If the Government want to see the deficits under control, they must allow the B.T.C. to be in control—to carry full responsibility and, within the framework of existing legislation, to choose its policies freely.
Either we must allow the British Transport Commission to operate as a great public service, which I should like to see and which I am sure my hon. Friends would like to see, or we must let it be a business commercial undertaking, in which case the Government should take their hands off it and allow it to make profit and to conduct its enterprise as private enterprise.
When I was a young boy I was taken from Birkenhead to London and back again on a visit. The fare then, in 1913, was 33s. return. Today, the fare is 65s. No private enterprise concern could come anywhere near that. In 1913 a box of Swan Vesta matches was ½d. Today, a box is 4d., eight times as much. The Government must allow the British Transport Commission to operate as private enterprise operates or it must be run as a public service. With this tugging of Sir Brian Robertson, one arm being pulled one way for public service and the other arm being pulled the other way for profits, I wonder the man has not split in the middle. His cri de coeur comes in the reappraisal Report. The Government should not leave him on a plank. It is time that they threw him a lifebuoy. The Government should decide whether the Commission is to make profits on a business basis or is to operate as a public service. If the latter, the Government should give the Commission the necessary financial help it needs to carry out its work as a service.
I now turn to something that is most important to me, and that is the position of railway workers. In this reappraisal Report, there is one word that I do not like very much. It is "rationalisation". I am old enough to remember rationalisation

between the two wars. I was about to say that it was a brutal thing. Companies were amalgamated and rationalised and black-coated workers and manual workers lost their jobs, but the profits of the combined companies went up. That went on throughout the country. Rationalisation, as it was called, produced a great deal of unemployment from which we suffered.
Rationalisation has other unfortunate features. The fears of the workers in the railway industry are now widespread, particularly in the railway workshops. I do not know whether it is fully realised what sacrifices railway workers have already made. We learn from the Report that in December, 1957, there were 573,000 workers in the industry. A year later there were 550,000. As a result of the policy of rationalisation, 23,000 railway workers have lost their employment. There was a banner headline in the Sunday Times the other day stating that the unions were worried. That does not surprise me. Every railway trade union leader is worried. He spends his days and nights trying to find a solution to the redundancy being created.
Perhaps the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us where it will all end. I have not the figures, but the article in the Sunday Times states that 14,000 men in railway workshops in the last three years have been declared redundant and a further 11,000 scheduled to leave railway workshops. When one reads the Report, figures of that nature are not surprising. The Report states that 1,000 stations are being closed, 1,800 miles of track are not to be used and there will be a reduction in stock. The number of railway wagons alone is to be reduced from 1¼ million to 750,000. Many of the 1¼ million are wooden trucks, but, as I understand it, the 750,000 are to be modern steel wagons. There will not be one-tenth of the repair work on that fleet that there was on the £1¼ million.
I think I am right in saying that the steam engine covered 94,000 miles a year. The diesel engines will cover 204,000 miles a year. It needs very little imagination to realise that that means redundancy on the railways. It means loss of jobs for the men. The number of marshalling yards is to be reduced from


158 to 47. It is true that they will be better and probably bigger marshalling yards, but they will not all be situated in the areas where they are now. Redundancy and unemployment will result from disbanded marshalling yards.
As I have said, a number of repair shops are to close down entirely. We have been given the list, and it is considerable. We in Crewe are fortunate. We are not to close down. Crewe has probably one of the greatest railway works in the world, certainly in this country. It is a very great national asset. At the moment, we are doing comparatively well, compared with the situation in some of my hon. Friend's constituencies. But the men walk round with a fear in their hearts. They know what is happening. From day to day they read about the closure of shops. It is not only the men who are redundant who are afraid. They have had it, but the men, now working, unless the Government can give them confidence, fear that they will be next on the list.
I have quoted the Sunday Times too often. It is not a newspaper which I rely on entirely, but this week it used these words:
Service and maintenance can eventually be cut by as much as four-fifths.
If the repair work in railway workshops can be cut down by four-fifths, great hardship, redundancy and grave threats to employment will result.
We who represent railway workers and railway towns demand of the Government that the maximum use be made of railway workshops owned by the State. There are two reason for this. First, the railway workshops are State property. Secondly, the workers are there; they have been giving loyal service to this great railway industry. The property has been paid for by the State and it should not be closed down while work is passed out to private enterprise. We are wasting a very valuable national asset. What the Government are doing is tantamount to the sabotaging of a nationalised industry. These are not my words. The men employed in the railway workshops throughout the country are saying that as they see work being passed out to private enterprise. The present policy throws out of employment tens of thousands of railway workers who have served the industry and the nation well.
The railway workers claim that they can make as good diesel engines as private enterprise can make. I am given to understand by a very high authority that the diesel-hydraulic locomotives built in railway workshops are giving much more reliable service than the very same models built by private enterprise. No doubt the Joint Parliamentary Secretary has some information about this. If I am wrong, I will withdraw the statement, but I make it on information given to me from a very high authority. I understand that the railway workshops have beaten private enterprise on reliability.

Mr. Nugent: I am not able to confirm or deny what the hon. and learned Gentleman says. I shall inquire and confirm or refute it as soon as I have the information.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I think the answer will be that I am right. I do not wish to give the source of my authority, but, if the hon. Gentleman inquires, he will receive the same answer.

Mr. Ellis Smith: And there is the cost of production too.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: As my hon. Friend says, the railway workshops are superior in their costs of production.

Mr. Nugent: Is the hon. Gentleman referring to Swindon?

Mr. Scholefield Allen: Yes, it is Swindon, but I will not give the exact details of the comparison. I gather that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary knows more about this than he is willing to admit. The railway workers at the Swindon works are making more reliable diesel-hydraulic locomotives than the private enterprise company to which the Government are putting out the work.
Railway losses and unemployment, in my submission, have in no small measure flowed from the policies of Her Majesty's Government. We have accused the Government from these benches time and time again during the last twelve months of perpetuating a policy of stagnation. This is something for which we have authority and support in the White Paper now before us. On page 30, paragraph 15 says:
There has been a relative standstill in the general level of industrial production since


1955, but a rise in the total transport facilities available in this country.
This is not a political pamphlet, but that sentence expresses what some of my right hon. and hon. Friends have been endeavouring to convince the Government of for some time. We have been trying to tell the country that since 1955, contrary to the annual rise in production which the Labour Party produced when in office, this Government have allowed production to stagnate. That is exactly what is said in this non-political White Paper, signed at the end by Sir Brian Robertson.
Twelve months ago last October, after those four years of stagnation, there was the credit squeeze. The credit squeeze was responsible for more of the redundancy in Crewe. This is referred to on page 6 of the White Paper. One finds great support in this document for what we have been trying to say, although we have been accused of talking party politics when we have said it. In paragraph 14, the Commission, speaking of the state of its accounts, says:
The Commission attributed the worsening of their financial position to the sudden decline in their traffic receipts, particularly the bulk traffics, which was occasioned by the fall in the level of activity in the industries vital to the railways.
Who caused the fall? The Government cannot have it both ways. They engineered the fall themselves, deliberately, by a 7 per cent. Bank Rate. They wanted it, and so they imposed the credit squeeze. Not only did they impose the credit squeeze, but they withdrew money from the British Transport Commission which it otherwise would have spent. In fact, they set back the modernisation plan twelve months ago.
The other accusation I make has been made before. The Government have disintegrated the plans of the previous Government and of the Commission itself by handing back large portions of the road transport industry to private enterprise—a policy of jobs for the boys and rewards for contributions to Tory funds. My hon. Friend the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) referred to this, and the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. G. Wilson) spoke about private enterprise road haulage attracting the traffic. I tell the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that it is said by almost every man in Crewe that the position today

means "muck for the railways". The railways can carry the muck, and the private enterprise hauliers can carry the traffic which is clean and well-packed and which yields high profits.

Mr. G. Wilson: I think the hon. Gentleman misunderstood my argument. I did not speak of road haulage particularly. I said that any transport service which is either very cheap or very convenient will create its own traffic. That happens very frequently in the railway passenger service where, for instance, if the service is cheap for people to go to the seaside, large numbers of passengers who would not otherwise travel will use it.

Mr. Scholefield Allen: I stand by this, and I know that every railway worker takes this as the issue before us. Every one of the workers at Crewe has told me the same. It is muck for the railways, the coal, the dirty and unpleasant or heavy cargoes which no one else wants, while the profitable ones go by road to be carried by private enterprise. In a short time the party now occupying these benches will be able to repeal that part of the legislation and hand back to the British Transport Commission those other services. We shall have a coordinated road and rail service.
We are glad to see that the Commission has a word for the staff. But the staff are watching very carefully what is happening about redundancy in the railway workshops, on the stations and in the marshalling yards. They have noted the compensation available for cotton capitalists. We are not far from Lancashire in Crewe. In my party it happens to be part of the same committee; we call it the Lancashire and Cheshire Committee, and I have to listen to these arguments. People there do not listen much to me because Crewe has too many problems itself. They know in Crewe that the cotton industry, parts of which are to be closed down, has been given £30 million. They will want to know, if they are thrown out of work, why there should be this compensation for cotton capitalists and not for railway workers and why there should be compensation for directors for loss of office, free of tax. They are asking these questions, and soon we shall


be demanding compensation and consideration on a like basis for all displaced and redundant railway workers.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Russell: I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) will forgive me if I do not follow him on the problems of redundancy—a very human problem of which he has great knowledge and of which I have had no experience at all. The only plea on the human side that I should like to put forward is that the Government should ask the Transport Commission to do something for the railway superannuitants, mostly of pre-war years, who are not getting anything like the pension which people in other walks of life are getting and some of whom are having a very hard time indeed. I know that that problem has been discussed, and I would ask that it be considered once again, because this comparatively small body of people have been very badly treated in the light of modern conditions.
I pass to the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley (Mr. C. R. Hobson), who touched on a number of topics, and with much of which he said I agree. He praised, for example, the railway restaurant car service. As I sometimes criticise the British Railways—as I shall do in a moment—I should like to join with him in that praise. It is an excellent service and far cheaper than that in many foreign countries. He also praised the fact that trains are cleaner than they used to be, and, again, I agree with him. I should like, however, to join with him in the strictures that he made about punctuality.
It is all-important, whether our railways are run as a nationalised industry or by private enterprise, that they should maintain a very high standard of punctuality. That goes for the airways Corporations as well. They are not, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Keighley said—and I have some experience of the East Coast, because I have a home in the North of England—maintaining the standard of punctuality that they ought to. One night, I came back from Newcastle on the Talisman. It was 40 minutes late owing to the train

in front running a hot axle box. I do not know why trains run hot axle boxes unless there is some fault in the greasing or maintenance but I would suggest that that is something that ought not to happen as a regular feature of British Railways.
On another occasion, I was on the Flying Scotsman, which broke down for two or three different reasons, the last of which was engine failure. The passengers had the annoyance of being parked in the middle line at York for a quarter of an hour while a relief train from behind came into the adjoining platform and went out again without any opportunity being given, to anyone who might have wanted to, to change into the train which had started last and was intended to get to its destination first. I think that punctuality is a very important point to which more attention ought to be paid than seems to be done at the moment.

Notice taken that 40 Members were not present;

House counted, and 40 Members being present—

Mr. Russell: As I was saying when the interruption occurred, the question of punctuality is important.
The hon. Member for Keighley, who raised the point, referred to the railways of France. Having had experience, as a member of the delegation to the Council of Europe, of travelling on French railways in the last year or two, I cannot remember an instance when any one of the express trains on which I have travelled has been a moment late. If French railways, which started more or less from scratch after the war, can manage to do this, I do not see why British Railways should not do the same.
The hon. Member for Keighley discussed, also, whether modernisation would be by electrification or the use of diesels. I have some sympathy with him. I do not know whether there is any confusion in the intentions of the Transport Commission. We seem to be adopting both policies, one on the East Coast main line and another on the L.M.S. from Euston. I only hope that we do not repeat the experience which appears to have been followed on certain foreign railways, of first electrifying and then running diesel expresses underneath


the overhead wires. That seems to me to be a stupid policy.
An example is one of the Transeuropsan Expresses, which runs from Amsterdam to Zurich. It is operated by a diesel locomotive, yet most of the system over which it runs is already electrified. It seems to be a complete waste to put up overhead wires and then to run a diesel express beneath them. I trust that this will not happen in anything that the Transport Commission is doing.
Reference has been made to speeds. I wonder why our trains today are not as fast as the fastest before the war. I am comparing, for example, the speed of the Talisman on the East Coast line and the Coronation and Silver Jubilee before the war, which were faster. Corresponding trains on some of the French railways have higher speeds. Perhaps the reason is that the track is not yet up to the requisite standard throughout, or there is too much congestion. I wonder whether we can be told some time why we are not back to pre-war standards in that respect and why we are not up to the standard of the French railways.
I should like to pass to a point concerning an attempt which is being made to obtain an increase in traffic and to profit from the congestion on the roads. I refer to the car sleeper service which was introduced last summer on one or two routes. I wonder whether it will be extended. It would attract a good deal of traffic and would certainly take something off the roads. From the London end, however, the only service of this nature is from King's Cross to Perth. I believe that there is also one from Glasgow to Bournemouth, or to Dover for people who want to go to the Continent.
It would be worth trying out similar services on other routes. For instance, why only from London to Perth? Why not to the North of England—from London to Newcastle, for example—or from Paddington to Cornwall, to take the holiday traffic and to enable people to avoid the congested roads to the West of England? This is something which might be considered and I hope that it will be tried.
Paragraph 129 of the Report of the Transport Commission deals with the

provision of car parks in the London area, but no doubt the problem affects other cities. The Report gives an account of what is being done to provide car parks, not only at London Transport stations, but at stations on British Railways. The plan was proposed by my right hon. Friend to try to prevent people bringing their cars into the centre of London by allowing them to park their cars in convenient places and come on by London Transport.
Surely more use could be made of the vast amount of space occupied by railway yards and railway property of different kinds. Buildings might be erected over these places and used for car parks, possibly in conjunction with offices. I gather that it is not economic to build a car park over a railway and use it simply as a car park, but surely it is economic to do what has been done at the West London Air Terminal, where the building will be of some use both as an office and a car park.
Where technical conditions allow, is it possible to erect a building over a railway and combine the need for increased office accommodation with the need for space for car parking? I am thinking, for example, of West Hampstead, where there are several different railway lines and also sidings and other railway property. This area could provide an excellent place for people to park their cars and come on by train from Finchley Road or West Hampstead stations. A great deal of ground around Kentish Town is occupied by the railways. Would it not be possible to build over this area and provide car parks, and possibly an office block, and meet an important demand in that way?
Will the introduction of the new diesel unit service provide a better service on one or two of the lines for which it is scheduled than the existing service? I have some experience of the St. Pancras line, because I live at Radlett, in Hertfordshire. The people there are very worried, because they have been threatened that when the diesel service is brought into operation there will be shorter trains. This means fewer passengers in each train and the existing trains are already crowded. I have not been able to get a satisfactory answer from the Transport Commission whether the new service will cope with the same


number of passengers. It may be that the Commission will be able to run a larger number of trains than can be done with the existing steam service. I hope that that is the case.
That brings me to ask whether the same improvement will be made to the track on that route as is being made on the King's Cross line. The Report states that the tunnel at Hadley Wood is being duplicated, so that there will be a four-track line a good distance out of King's Cross where there is now this bottleneck. There is a similar bottleneck between Kentish Town and Finchley Road on the line from St. Pancras where everything has to pass over one pair of rails through a tunnel. There is a parallel tunnel used for goods traffic only, because I gather that damage to the tunnel prevents it being used for passenger traffic. Is there not a chance of the tunnel being repaired and brought into use as a passenger line so that the bottleneck between Finchley Road and Kentish Town is removed and two additional lines made available for passenger traffic? If this is done it will greatly improve the services from St. Pancras, particularly local services.
There are many other points that I should like to make, but I know that other hon. Members want to speak. I would merely say that I hope that the modernisation programme, as reappraised in the White Paper, will be a great success. I am sure that we all wish the Commission and the railways all possible good will in the task which lies before them.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: In the debate upon the Transport (Borrowing Powers) Bill last January I said:
the best thing that the Minister can do is to introduce a Measure which will entirely reorganise the Commission's financial arrangements."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st January. 1959; Vol. 598, c. 350.]
It is very interesting to see that at long last some hon. Members opposite have been converted to this idea. The proposal is long overdue, because the task facing the Commission is impossible. Every realist knows that that is so. In the light of the present situation, for the Minister or the Commission to talk of breaking even with the modernisation

programme in a short time is just wishful thinking, and a refusal to face realities. The nation must face the fact that a railway system is essential for its well-being. The National Coal Board and such organisations as the Federation of British Industries, various chambers of commerce and representative private industries pay service to this idea. That being so, we must face the fact that in order to have an efficient service the Government must give the Commission the wherewithal to allow it elbow-room. It can then provide a system of which the nation can be proud.
Let us look at the very serious financial position of the Commission. The Government must accept their responsibility for bringing it about. When we nationalised transport we laid down certain conditions and commenced to build an integrated transport system. Within a very short period the Act came into operation. That was in 1948. By 1951 we were showing an overall surplus after paying interest and central charges, and that trend continued. In 1952 there was a surplus of £8 million, and in 1953 a surplus of £4½ million. Then the dead hand of the Government came into operation. What have we found since? There has been a breaking up of the integrated transport system; the Government have refused to allow the Commission to increase its charges as agreed by the Transport Charges Tribunal, and from 1953 onwards there has been a deficit which has increased year by year.
Today, instead of a surplus the Commission is faced with an overall deficit of £300 million on revenue account. That is one reason why, in 1958, the Commission had to find no less than £78,391,000 in interest charges alone. How is it possible for an undertaking to make headway with such a tremendous burden?
It is interesting to note from the last page of its Report that it has been necessary for the Commission to borrow £50 million with annual instalments of principal of £2 million and interest charges at 6 per cent. per annum on the amount of the advance outstanding during the preceding year. What a fantastic position—£50 million borrowed for 25 years at 6 per cent. This follows a whole series of previous borrowings


under the provisions of the Transport (Borrowing Powers) legislation when the interest charges varied from 5 per cent. to 5¾ per cent. That is the burden shouldered by the Commission, and it is one which the Minister should take over in the course of reorganising the financial position of the Commission.
in its reappraisal the Commission suggests that it might be able to break even, and perhaps even to make a surplus of £50 million to £100 million, when the modernisation scheme begins to operate in 1963. But the Commission and the Minister know that this is just a fantasy. The Commission, naturally, has safeguarded itself by saying that this depends upon an increase of 2 per cent. to 3 per cent. in traffics. A large amount of the freight carried by railways is provided by the iron and steel and the coal industries, and everyone knows that production is stagnant in those industries.
The necessary increase in coal production, or iron and steel production, between now and 1963 to give a surplus for the Commission of between £50 million and £100 million is very unlikely to materialise. We are all aware of the tremendous stocks of coal at the pithead and in the hands of distributors. We know that there has been a reduction in iron and steel production and the Minister and the Commission must be aware that there is little prospect of a 2 per cent. to 3 per cent. increase in that type of traffic.
Coal represents 61 per cent. of freight earnings or 36 per cent. of the freight and coaching stock earnings. Iron and steel production is running at from 70 per cent. to 75 per cent., so that it is wishful thinking to say that there will be a sufficient increase during the next three years to enable the Commission to make a surplus such as has been referred to. Iron and steel accounts for two-thirds of the traffics or 24 per cent. of the freight tonnage or 15 per cent. of freight traffic receipts.
From these figures alone one realises that it will be impossible for the Commission to break even. At the present time it faces on overall deficit of £300 million. That deficit has grown during the period of office of the present Government. When the last Labour Government left office the overall deficit was

about £27 million. Now it is £300 million. Due to the high interest charges imposed since nationalisation the Commission has found itself saddled with a debt which by the end of 1958 amounted in cumulative interest charges to no less than £567 million. Today it has an actual deficit of £300 million.
Is not this "Alice in Wonderland" finance, to say the least of it? It is the present Minister who is the dead hand, responsible for placing the Commission in this absurd position. What hope can the railwaymen have in the committee of inquiry that has been working for the whole of this year and will probably go into next year before it issues its report, in face of this startling financial position and of the interest and other charges with which the Commission is faced?
We welcome modernisation and think it is right, but the attitude of the Minister has brought about bewilderment. It has resulted in redundancy for about 27,000 people in the last two years, while the present workshop policy will mean redundancy for 11,000, at the minimum, and probably for a number far greater than that. This is in spite of increased efficiency. Had I time, I could point to large increases in efficiency brought about in railway operations by the Commission, but the men engaged in the industry only get three different types of redundancy agreement. Instead of getting compensation on the scale paid to captains of industry, railwaymen who are in the evening of their careers merely have the benefit of three miserable redundancy agreements. Even so, the Commission is more generous than the private enterprise railways were in pre-war days; but the agreements are pretty miserable.
I am intrigued about the Ministry's workshop policy. I questioned the Minister whether the Commission would have a free hand in deciding whether to equip the railway shops for making coaches and wagons. Can they do so? It has been an interesting point of debate. It has been held that where railway shops are laid out suitably they will continue to be used for the manufacture of components. I would ask the Joint Parliamentary Secretary whether that means that the railway locomotive shops will be able to produce the motive power component parts for diesel and electric locomotives. I gather that he agrees that they can.

Mr. Nugent: I do not want to take up more time than is necessary. The hon. Gentleman had better look at my answer in HANSARD tomorrow.

Mr. Popplewell: I stand corrected. If the Commission has that power, I hope it will use it. Why should railway-men who have been engaged all their lives in building steam locomotives be turfed out? We know there is a reduction in the wagon fleet in the transfer from wood to steel, but in spite of this, cannot the railway wagon shops build London coach stock and wagons? These have always been handed out to private enterprise, but here is an opportunity to let the shop workers do the work that they are used to. If there is surplus shop floor space in railway workshops why cannot the Railway Executive utilise it for producing its own civil engineering outdoor machinery, motor, signal and telegraph equipment? That is a reasonable proposition which I hope will be followed.
The Commission has done a very good job with the resources available. The Government have placed steel bands round it by their financial arrangements, high interest charges and refusal to allow it to expand. After the General Election I hope that we shall sit on the benches opposite and be able to give the Commission that freedom of movement necessary to allow it to build up the efficient system it so desires and which is so essential for our national well-being.

9.2 p.m.

Mr. Leslie Spriggs: I wish to express my gratitude to my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. G. R. Strauss) for leaving me a few minutes before he speaks in the debate. I shall try to deal with one or two of the points I had in mind, but I have not time to develop the main case I had hoped to put.
As a trade unionist, I think that we should take notice of what the Commission says in paragraph 12, on page 5, volume 1, of the Report issued last December. That paragraph says:
In a year of changes and financial stringency, bringing many potential causes of strain between management and staff, it could be said that on the whole there has never been a better spirit of co-operation and mutual desire to face up to the realities of the situation.

Later in the paragraph the Report says:
The staff of no private undertaking work under the same glare of public criticism as those employed on the railways and road transport and in the catering and other branches of the Commission. Their steadiness and their continued efforts to maintain the generally high standards of public transport service which this country enjoys are in the Commission's view meritorious. If public transport is to provide still higher standards of convenience and efficiency for its users the morale and keenness of the staff must be correspondingly high. Good internal relations must march with the modernisation of the equipment they use. That was one of the Commission's principal aims in 1958.
Because I have no further time to deal with this part of the Report, I merely say this about the financial structure of the Commission to which hon. Members who have spoken from either side of the House have referred, and I hope that hon. Members will listen carefully. I am one of the last railwaymen to leave the industry and to enter this House. We look at the figures of wage and salary rates received by men carrying responsibility and we know the difficulties when an application is made for an increase. We are all aware of the reply of the Transport Commission. In effect, it is, "There is nothing in the kitty." I shall give a few figures in relation to a number of men who are carrying responsibility and doing arduous and difficult work.
I start at the top, because I have no prejudice against those who hold higher posts than I ever held in the industry. Stationmasters, yardmasters, goods agents, and so on, receive £12 15s. a week. Inspectors, foremen and supervisors receive £11 12s. a week. This is one of the reasons why men in the lower grades of the industry will not take promotion. They have good reason to refuse. Because of the financial structure, men with the ability to take up responsible positions are refusing to accept them.
Let us consider the wages of the men who are doing the dirty work—the men who are on the engines and in the signal boxes. A driver's wage is £11 2s. a week; a motor man, who drives the electric trains, receives £11 2s. a week; a fireman, who handles tons of coal to keep up the steam pressure, receives £9 7s. a week; a guard in charge of a train, perhaps with hundreds of lives in his hands, receives £8 19s. a week; a shunter receives £8 13s. a week.
I must conclude, but I am very much obliged for the few moments which my right hon. Friend has permitted me to take. I regret that I have not time to tell the House and the country what the railwaymen are suffering under the present financial structure.

9.6 p.m.

Mr. G. R. Strauss: I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for St. Helens (Mr. Spriggs), had to curtail his remarks, as he was making a most interesting speech. I am sorry that he did not have time to develop it. But I have to intervene to put various points and questions to the Minister.
This may well be the last major debate in the present Parliament, and although it has not aroused the interest or the passions which we had in last night's debate, we all agree that the subject we are discussing is of very great importance and that the future and the welfare of industry and our country depends largely on the policies adopted by the Government of the day towards our transport system.
There has been general agreement in the debate on at any rate two matters. One is that no branch line which runs through anybody's constituency should be closed down, however uneconomic it may be; and the second is an appreciation of the extraordinary progress made by the British Transport Commission in executing its modernisation plan. Nobody who reads the Report can have any doubt that the Commission possesses immense vigour and determination and that this is also possessed by its administrative and technical staff. The Commission's achievements so far have been most striking and deserving of the highest praise. There is also a general desire on the part of all hon. Members that the Commission should be allowed to continue without any question or doubt to carry out its plans as quickly as possible.
The speech made by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary earlier was almost his first entry into the political arena, for previously his speeches on transport have been on more technical matters. While listening to it I could not help asking myself what his attitude and that of his right hon. Friend would be to the railways today, and what they would do

about them, if they were not already in public possession. They would have to be modernised and re-equipped on a vast scale. Had they not been publicly owned, what would the right hon. Gentleman have done about them? Would he have nationalised them? I do not think he would have had any alternative. The only possible alternative would have been to provide Government money to privately-owned companies on so huge a scale that I do not believe even a Conservative Government would have dared to do. So I think that not only the nation but also the present Minister and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary should be grateful to the Labour Government in 1947 for introducing their Bill nationalising the railways.
In this connection we remember what happened when the railways were under private ownership in the 1930s. Many of them were unable to modernise themselves and adopt proper equipment, because they could not raise the money. We remember also that at the same time the Government refused to take any appropriate measures to overcome that difficulty. Today the nationalised industry and the State are to some extern carrying the burden inherited from the time when the railways were privately owned and we had a Conservative Government who refused to take the necessary steps to put things right.
The railways are now owned by the State and there is a direct responsibility on the Government for their general welfare. The Minister will no doubt repeat in very vigorous terms the case made by the Parliamentary Secretary, who said that the Government accept that responsibility and deserve high praise all round for backing the modernisation and re-equipment scheme of the British Transport Commission. The hon. Gentleman went further, but I think that he must have had his tongue in his cheek when he argued that when the Labour Party was in power between 1945 and 1951, it did nothing to re-equip the railways and therefore we should now praise the Government for what they have done.
Yet we are seriously criticised for not having spent vast sums of money during that period for doing this job. The hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well


that it was impossible to do so at the time. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman was not in the House at the time, but he should have been told that time and time again during that period when the Labour Party was in power Conservative Members on the Front Bench as well as on the back benches attacked the Labour Government for indulging in too much capital expenditure. They said that we were doing far too much in that direction and that we would bankrupt the country. That was their constant criticism of the Labour Government. It is obvious that at that time any drastic action in this direction was impossible. Our industry had to be wholly re-equipped for peaceful purposes. The 1939–45 war had just ended and we were in a period of rearmament for the Korean War, which was supported on all sides of the House.
If the Parliamentary Secretary boasts today and tries to take great credit for backing the modernisation scheme, one must ask him whether he has any choice. Can he do anything else? If someone has a house which is beginning to crumble through lack of repair over many years, there is no great merit in spending money to make it habitable and put it in order, especially if there is no alternative house to live in. There is no alternative to our railway system. It is a vital national service on which the welfare of the State depends. The taking of steps to render it capable of fulfilling the national needs was inescapable and does not merit the gushing admiration that the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary appear to expect. The fact is that they had no option.
Before coming to the terms of our Amendment, I should like to say one or two words about the present position of the railways and their current losses. This has already been said before, but it is worth while repeating it, because people must realise it. It is suggested, although not by the Minister, that the losses being made by the railways today are directly or indirectly connected with the fact that they are publicly owned. That argument is obvious and absolute nonsense, as practically all the railways in the world today, whether publicly or privately owned, are

losing money, and for exactly the same reasons. That is particularly true of the railways on the eastern side of the United States. All railways are facing the same difficulties of road competition.
There is another point in connection with these losses that everyone should bear in mind. They should look on the other side of the balance sheet. The amount of the losses involved is well known. Those losses may not continue—we hope they will not; we hope, of course, that they will be turned into a profit—but the benefits of having an efficient railway system are incalculable, and nobody can measure them. The prosperity of a large part of British industry depends on an efficient railway system.
If the heavy costs of modernising the railways were not now being incurred one thing is absolutely certain, and that is that the losses would not only continue but would get very much worse in future years. That should be borne in mind when the losses are considered, and when people talk of the burden that they place on the State. The railways certainly cannot be closed. Their existence is vital and, at the end of the day, the State will always have to ensure that they continue to operate.
That raises a very important question that is exercising the minds of many people today, including the Commission, as will be seen from its Report. The question is the extent to which the railways should be regarded as a business enterprise whose viability is of primary importance, and the extent to which they should be regarded as a national service. The Government's actions make it quite clear that they give priority to the first consideration. They regard the railways from, if I may so put it, a capitalist rather than a Socialist angle. We differ fundamentally.
Of course we want the railways to be efficiently run, and to cut out all wasteful and unnecessary expenditure—as, indeed, we require the hospital service to do—but we say that the prime function of our nationalised transport system is to serve the public and that the amount of profit it makes is no proper test, as the Parliamentary Secretary suggested it was, of the efficiency of the industry.
Our criticism of the Government is that during the years that they have been in power they have blown hot and cold on the Commission. For example, they say that the Commission should be run on purely commercial lines, and then prevent it getting the revenue to which it is entitled. They back the modernisation plan, and then take steps to retard its operation. This inconsistency has been damaging to the Commission, and the effect has been to prevent it developing its services as they could have been, and should have been, developed.
My hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) has gone over, in some detail, the various actions of the Government—actions on the lines that I have just indicated—and though I do not wish to refer to then again in detail I must mention them. There was, of course, the Government's attempt in their early days to sell to private enterprise the profitable road haulage section. That attempt was made to appease the Road Haulage Association and the Government's many political friends and supporters.
The attempt did not succeed completely, largely because there was revolt from the industry, the chambers of commerce and a large number of hon. Members on the benches opposite. However, it succeeded partially, and to the extent that it succeeded it did serious financial damage to the Commission which, year by year, has been deprived of millions of pounds revenue that it otherwise would have enjoyed. That was one act that made us say in our Amendment that we regret
… the actions of Her Majesty's Government which have damaged the financial solvency of the British Transport Commission …
That was one of them, and I should have thought it undeniable.
In this connection, what we are very concerned about are reports from fairly informed sources and semi-official sources that the Conservative Party and the Minister, if he gets the chance, want to go further. I am referring to reports not only in the independent Press, but in the Conservative Press, and particularly in the Sunday Times, in front page stories, that it is the desire of the Conservative Party, and will be the policy of a Conservative Minister of Transport, to sell off further profitable sections of the Commission

to private enterprise. Of course, the Minister says that that is not the policy of the Government. It is not, today; of course, it is not. Naturally, it would not be just before an election, but, since they have done it before, we wonder whether, if they got the opportunity, they would follow the same course again and sell off these sections to private enterprise, which private enterprise would love to have, because they are highly profitable. Such a policy would be in complete accordance with the outlook of the Conservative Party.
We refer in our Amendment to other instances, which we regret and which we invite the House to regret, by which the solvency of the Commission has been damaged by the actions of the Government—if not by the present Minister, by one of his predecessors. There was the occasion when, because an L.C.C. election was pending, the Government took deliberate action to postpone the raising of fares in London, using the British Transport Commission as an instrument to further the political fortunes of the Conservative Party. Is that denied? Can it be seriously denied? We regret that, and that is one of the things covered by our Amendment.
We also regret that later on, when the Commission—and this matter was referred to by my hon. Friend—wanted to raise freights by 10 per cent., a rise which the Transport Tribunal said was urgently necessary, the Government said, "No, we must postpone it for six months", and the Transport Commission lost many millions of pounds by that postponement. Is that fact denied? The Government may try to justify it on the grounds that the national economy required it at the moment, but we dispute that very much. It is the fact that there again the solvency of the Commission was adversely affected by the deliberate action of the Government.
Then, of course, more recently, just as soon as the modernisation plan was properly launched and all the plans were made and under way, the Government said, "We must carry out an economy policy, and we must cut down the expenditure to be incurred by the Commission, all organised, arranged and provided for in the coming year, so as to make some economies in that direction". There could not have been a more false


economy. It retarded and upset the plans for making the Commission a viable organisation, and, of course, it had repercussions in other directions.
Those who have read the recently published Annual Report of the Iron and Steel Board will see that the reduction in capital expenditure for the railways in 1958 had a serious effect on the fortunes of the iron and steel industry and was responsible for substantial unemployment there. The actual figures show that in the second half of 1958, the railways bought only 369,000 tons of steel material, including rolling stock, against an average of over 500,000 tons in the previous half year and in the two half years prior to that. We have strong criticisms against the Government for their actions in that direction.
Most important of all is the attitude of the Government, which has been made clear by recent actions of the Minister, saying that the over-riding requirement of the Transport Commission at present is "economy, economy, economy—at all costs." When the Transport Commission proposes as an economy the cutting down of services by £20 million a year, they say, "That is not enough. You have got to cut down by £30 million". There is no doubt that it is as a result of pressure from the Ministry of Transport that the Commission proposes that in the next four years, instead of cutting down the railway services by 300 miles, as was done in the last four years, it is to cut them down by 1,800 miles—all in the sacred name of economy.
What about service to the public? Is that not to count? In our view, from all the actions and statements by the Government, that is today comparatively unimportant. The only thing that matters is the balance sheet of the Commission. We regard that as wholly wrong.
If the Minister says that the Commission has no option in the matter because by law it is bound to make both ends meet, taking one year with another, our reply is that it also has another obligation which is to provide an adequate and properly integrated service of public inland transport. Which is the more important? If it now appears after twelve years that there are burdens on the Commission which are insupportable

and which could not be anticipated in 1947, it is the duty of the Minister of Transport to come forward and to say of which burden it shall be relieved and how it is to be done. We do not know what are the Minister's ideas about changes in the capital structure. He should have some ideas. A proposal was put forward by the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. L. Thomas)—

Mr. L. Thomas: Purely personal.

Mr. Strauss: Purely personal, but a proposal which I welcome very much. I do not say that it is acceptable but it is the sort of thing which will have to be done. I refer to his suggestion that the capital spent by the State on the modernisation plan should be taken up in equity shares—in other words, that the interest should not be an annual burden on the railways if the railways in any year are unable to make both ends meet. That is the sort of thing which we expect the Minister of Transport to suggest to us. But nothing of the sort. All he suggests is cutting down and retrenchment in the railway services. We strongly object to that attitude, as we regard the railways of the very highest importance as a service.

Mr. L. Thomas: Is the right hon. Gentleman saying that the British transport service must be a viable economic unit or that it should become a social service?

Mr. Strauss: I say that primarily it should be a social service. Every effort should be made to make it viable, but the prime thing is to make it a social service. If the two things are incompatible, the need to make a good service of our railways is the more important. Of course, I do not object—no one does—when a small branch line is closed down, if it is losing heavily, if very few people are involved and a good alternative form of transport can be provided. But where such forms of transport cannot be assured and very large numbers of people will suffer hardship as a result of closing these lines, they ought not to be closed. But that is what will happen in the next three years on a large scale if the policy of the Commission, under the pressure of the Minister, is carried out and 1,800 miles of railway line are closed.
To sum up, we are critical of the Government in their behaviour towards the railways. We deny that they are entitled to claim great merit to themselves for backing the modernisation plan. They have no option but to do so. And we are full of criticism of the actions of the Minister of Transport and his predecessors. We hope that this evening he will not, as he so often does, regard any criticism of his Ministry as an impertinence. We hope, on the other hand, that he will give us a reasoned reply.
Our indictment is that in the past the Government have adopted policies which have often damaged the transport system, undermined its solvency and restricted the services that it should and could give industry and the public. We say that these policies have been often irresponsible and frequently irreconcilable one with the other. Now the Government have overtly adopted the dangerous policy that the balance sheet of the railways, and not the service that they render to the nation, is the only thing that matters. For these reasons, we have moved our Amendment and we claim that our action is fully justified.

9.31 p.m.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Harold Watkinson): Despite a rather more spirited winding-up speech by the right hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), with which I will deal in due course, I think that the major portion of the debate falls more naturally under the words which my right hon. Friends and I put on the Order Paper, which ask the House to take note of the Report, because the majority of the speeches today and the general debate certainly have not taken the complexion of what I suppose is meant to be a Motion of censure on the Government. I therefore wondered whether this was not a last-minute attempt to make the end of term a little more interesting. I wondered also whether the debate was not originally intended to be the sort of debate that we have every year on the British Transport Commission's accounts, when hon. Members, rightly, try to study the problems of this great industry, which, after all, is still the country's largest employer of labour.
First, I should like, in the calm atmosphere that the words "take note" imply, to deal with some of the major and important issues raised in the debate. I will deal with the right hon. Gentleman's speech and the Opposition's Amendment towards the end of my remarks, but, first, there are some important things that must be said for the sake of the railways and all those men who work on them.
I would not wish to address the House without doing what I usually do, always with a sense of great sincerity. I should like, at least for one moment, to join with the hon. Member for Enfield, East (Mr. Ernest Davies) in saying that the House should be grateful to Sir Brian Robertson and his colleagues. They do a very fine job under very great difficulty. When I say "his colleagues" I hope the House will accept that by that I mean every man and woman working for the British Transport Commission. They are all trying to do the same job.

Mr. Lindgren: They do not think that of the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Watkinson: That is the hon. Member's personal opinion. He made exactly the same speech last year. I do not take any notice of his speech because it is certainly not justified by the very pleasant personal relations which I am honoured to say I enjoy with the railway trade union leaders when I meet them.

Mr. Lindgren: The worst Minister of Transport!

Mr. Watkinson: What I have said happens to be true.
I now come to the general proposals made in the reappraisal plan of the British Transport Commission. Here again, the Opposition's attitude is singularly confused. Both the right hon. Member for Vauxhall and the hon. Member for Enfield, East have said rightly that, except perhaps on the west coast of America and in Holland, there is not a major railway system in the world that is not making very heavy losses. Certainly as chairman of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, I have had that brought very forcefully to my attention. But then they went on to say that in some mysterious way all would be well with British Railways if it were not


for the policy of the Government. They cannot have it both ways.
If world conditions are bringing on almost every major railway system very heavy losses, then all that we in this country can hope is that we can weather the storm and gradually get the position right. It is not fair to the railways of this country to assume that they are in some specially favourable position here. In fact, they are not. It is only fair to those who work on the railways to say that they are facing a situation which is common to almost every railway system in the world.
I must make another point because, again, the Opposition's attitude is certainly not clear to me. What the Opposition have said, and what the hon. Member for Enfield, East has said, and which I quite accept, is that their view has always been that the British Transport Commission is gradually running up a very heavy debt and interest burden. Of course it is. What does the hon. Gentleman propose? Is the modernisation plan, with all this material and effort, to be put in for nothing? Are the Government to give the railways the modernisation plan? Are the Government to encourage the Commission to repudiate all its liabilities? That is not what the hon. Gentleman's 1947 Act said. The Act says that the railways are required to pay, taking one year with another.
If that is no longer the policy of the Opposition, they should say so. It would be a very important change of policy. I do not know whether that is what the right hon. Member for Vauxhall means when he says that if the Opposition have to choose, they choose the railways as a social service. If that means that in future the railways are to be allowed to repudiate their general liabilities, to take large sums of money from the taxpayer without any effort to repay, I must make it quite plain that that is not the policy of the present Government. While we accept the difficulties—I shall come to the problem of capital liabilities in a moment—we certainly do not take the view that these are things to be shrugged off and ignored. The sums of money are large and it is public money into the bargain.
The Opposition go on to say that the Government have seriously underestimated railway deficits. Nothing was said about this from the Opposition benches, but it is only fair to Sir Brian Robertson and his colleagues to say that the plan on which the House lent the Commission a great sum of money would still be running very much as it should have been had it not been for the complete failure of the nationalised coal industry to sell its products. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I do not comment on that except to say that 44 per cent. of total freight receipts come from coal traffics. Anybody who has studied railway finances will know that the main cause of the railways' increased deficit has arisen from the disastrous—that is the right word—drop in their coal carrying.

Mr. William Hamilton: It was the Government's policy of stagnation.

Mr. Watkinson: To that extent the future position of the Commission changed, and Sir Brian Robertson very quickly came to me and the House last autumn when he realised that he would not be able to keep his bargain.
I make this point because I think it right that the House should realise that what the Government have done—I propose to say this in more formal terms in a moment or two—has been to take the judgment of Sir Brian Robertson, as chairman of the Commission, and his colleagues about the course of the railway industry and to support them in what they thought was right. We did that when they came forward with their plan saying that they hoped to break even in 1961–62. When things did not go as planned—I have given the House the reason—Sir Brian Robertson came forward quickly and gave the House the facts through my Ministry. At that time I asked him to produce this complete reappraisal and reassessment of his position.
Much has been said about this today. The right hon. Gentleman said, and the hon. Member for Enfield, East said much the same in somewhat less precise terms, that it was pressure from the Government, through me, which caused Sir Brian Robertson and his colleagues to bring forward this document in the form in which it was laid before the House.

Mr. Ernest Davies: I think that the right hon. Gentleman is misinterpreting what my right hon. Friend and I said. We said not that it was the terms of the White Paper which were influenced by the Minister but the action which has been taken in regard to economies forced upon the Commission.

Mr. Watkinson: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman because perhaps I did not make myself plain. I thought that is what the right hon. Gentleman just said, that the rationalisation plan and the cuts are a result of Government pressure. I had the opportunity of consulting Sir Brian Robertson on this, as I had the opportunity of consulting him about the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Enfield, East that top executives of the railway management and members of the area boards did not agree with the plans in this document.
I must make the chairman's position quite plain by telling the House that, when I consulted him, he asked me to say that this plan is put forward as the best judgment that the Commission can make, it is put forward entirely on the Commission's own initiative, it is entirely supported by the Commission, by the area boards, by the senior executives, and it represents their best judgment of their future on which they ask for Government support. That is a very good example and a complete answer to the allegations which have run all through this debate that a Minister of Transport in a Conservative Government exercises improper pressure on the Transport Commission.

Mr. Strauss: I never talked about improper pressure. In fact does not this plan reflect the policy believed in and expressed on many occasions by the Minister during the last year or two?

Mr. Watkinson: The right hon. Gentleman cannot get out of it like that. That is not what he said at all. He said that it was a policy almost forced on the Commission. In fairness to the Commission, I want the House to understand, because it is very important in the light of future examinations which will be made of this document, that this document represents the Commission's own plan, and I thought that it was very unjustifiable to imply, as the hon.

Gentleman the Member for Enfield, East did, that this is not an agreed plan which the whole Commission supports.
I want to go on with the re-examination of the Commission's future. I think that this is a very important task. After all, as I have said, this industry is the country's largest employer of labour and, as the right hon. Gentleman said, it is certainly essential to our commercial efficiency. I propose to complete my survey of its future before I turn to more political matters.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Dunbartonshire, West (Mr. Steele) made what I thought was a very acute speech as a railwayman himself, and he raised some matters which, I think, will need re-examination, for example, the fringe areas where there is a delicate and difficult balance between a service which possibly may never pay, but which is a service which should be kept on perhaps because there is no alternative means of transport.
I say that this document will be most carefully examined now by my Ministry in conjunction with the Treasury and other Departments which are interested. We shall try to examine the issues raised in it and look at the difficulties which arise in the fringe areas. We shall look at the question of capital structure, although, again, I must make it quite plain to the House that I have had no plan, no recommendation and, indeed, no discussion with Sir Brian Robertson on the capital structure of the Railways.
I was impressed by what my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil (Mr. Peyton) has said, and I thought that he was quite right that perhaps we ought to wait a litle longer before we come to decisions on this very broad issue. All I can say at the moment is that if the Commission comes forward with any particular proposals they will be carefully and sympathetically examined.
The next question with which I want to deal is that of modernisation. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall said that we should not claim any particular credit for modernisation and that modernisation was not really the key to the future of the railways.

Mr. Strauss: I did not say that.

Mr. Watkinson: I thought that the right hon. Gentleman did say that we


should not claim too much credit. The point I wish to make is this, because it is important to the future of the railways. I do not know how many hon. Members have had time to study the pictorial section of the first part of the Annual Report and Accounts. There they will see in pictorial form some of the end-products of the very large sums of money with which the Government are backing the Commission. In these things—new diesel locomotives, new track laying and overhead electrification—lies the future for every railway man and the hope of a railway system that will in the end pay its way.
I accept that the Socialist Government may have been in financial difficulties that did not allow them to do as much as they wished for the railways, but I must say in fairness to the railways that had more modernisation been done in those early years after the war, their position today would have been immeasurably improved. [Interruption.] The right hon. Member for Vauxhall dealt with the situation before the war and made the case that the railways were then run down and in sad need of help. I must remind the House of the railways' record during the war, which, as every one of us knows, was completely outstanding. At least, the railways did that on the equipment which they had before the war.
In the year 1959, £178 million worth of Government money is going into railway modernisation. Sir Brian Robertson himself has said that it is as much as he can usefully spend. Thus the second broad allegation that the Government are not supporting the railways to the maximum of the Government's capacity, and, indeed, to the maximum of what the Commission itself can use, is, again, not proved. The future of the railways, which depends upon modernisation, would certainly be prejudiced by a Socialist Government which, because of recurring crises, would not be able to find the capital investment.
I have dealt with the major issues which have been raised in the debate concerning the reappraisal. Now, I must turn to the Opposition Amendment. It uses the word "regrets", which makes it tantamount to a Motion of censure. Therefore, I have listened very carefully throughout the debate to the reasons

on which the Amendment was based and I have listened even more anxiously for some kind of policy on which the Opposition would base the future of the railways. I have heard neither.
What I have heard is a repeated charge of interference, in fares and in a great many other things. If I interfered on fares, I was in very good company. I was in company with the Socialist-controlled London County Council and literally dozens of other local authorities throughout the country, and with trade unions, all of whom, as one hon. Member opposite said, have consistently always opposed fare increases and have opposed them as vigorously as ever they could.
Therefore, I make no apology to this House for saying to the Commission from time to time that it should keep its fares and charges as low as it reasonably can. Indeed, the Commission itself said in September, 1956, that on the railways in particular, the general merchandise traffic continued to decline and could not, therefore, be recouped forthwith in higher transport charges. If the charge is that the Government have made their attitude plain on fares from time to time, I do not regard that as being anything other than the natural duty of a Government which wants to keep price stability and to halt inflation.
I now come to the last general point, again not mentioned by hon. Members opposite. It is the freedom which the 1953 Act gave British Railways on their charges. That Act freed them from their old obligations, and gave them a chance to charge what they thought they needed to charge to get the business. Although that Act in Socialist eyes may have had other more unpalatable results, it freed the railways and gave them a chance to live in a more competitive world.
We are debating two different ways of running a great industry. We have made our way plain. It is to modernise the railways and to decentralise them, because we believe in the area boards. We believe in the method of line management. We believe that the nearer we bring the management to the customer the better it will be. Our policy and practice is, therefore, quite plain. We do not intend to throw the industry back into the melting pot with some great attempt to denationalise the whole thing. We intend to decentralise the railways,


make them more efficient, and thus make them serve the public better than they have done.
Throughout the debate I have waited to hear the Opposition's policy. The hon. Member for Enfield, East said that the Opposition's policy was to provide a planned, publicly-owned transport system, operated in the public interest. I do not know what we can construe from that, but I prefer the assessment of my hon. Friend the Member for Yeovil who said that the Opposition's policy, meant they had not learnt a single thing since 1947.
That is true because the hon. Member for Enfield, East, when challenged, said that the Opposition rested on the basis of the 1947 Act. I therefore take it that the policy of the Opposition is to go back to the complete nationalisation of road haulage, presumably with the C-licence holder thrown in. I hope that the Opposition will make that alternative rather more plain to the country than they have here tonight because that policy is not one that the country finds particularly attractive.
I promised the hon. Member for Enfield, East that I would reply to his unjustified allegation about my Ministry and its enforcement policies. I am willing to be charged with a desire to defend my Ministry when it needs defending. The hon. Gentleman said that my Ministry's enforcement policies were deliberately slack and that we did not follow them up. The figures show that by the end of the year we shall have increased our enforcement staff by 50 per cent. We are prosecuting 11,000 people a year, and we have just extracted a line of £20,000 in one case. The hon. Gentleman's attack is an example of the sort of broad, general, quite unjustified allegation by which the Opposition are trying to disguise their lack of any practical policy.
During the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Vauxhall I waited anxiously for a clear statement of the Opposition's policy, but the right hon. Gentleman took us back to the 'thirties. He talked about inconsistency, our policy of selling off road haulage and all the rest, but not a word about an alternative policy. That is what I am interested in. If our way of

running the railways is wrong it is for the Opposition to demonstrate that their way is better. As far I can gather, the Opposition's policy rests on the re-enactment of the 1947 Act.
If that is what hon. Members opposite think, I hope that they will be fair enough to make it plain to the country that that is their policy, because it is beginning to dawn on the Opposition that nationalisation as a theory of management is quite unsuitable in the second half of the twentieth century. It has nothing to do with the politics of the issue; it is merely that it is unworkable in practice. Yet the Opposition say again and again that they intend to go back to the full rigours of their nationalisation policy. I cannot see how that can do anything for the railways in their present circumstances.

Mr. Hamilton: Is the right hon. Gentleman going to denationalise them?

Mr. Watkinson: I am delighted to answer hon. Members on that point. They are not prepared to accept that we are not unduly doctrinaire in this matter. We have merely developed, in the railways and the other nationalised industries, a decentralised and better managed unit which, if it is allowed to go forward on the path we have set out for it, in the end will turn these nationalised industries into something which might do the country a little good instead of being a millstone round its neck.
I now sum up. The reassessment is the honest opinion of the Commission, and the Government accept it as such and will give it the most careful study. Allegations that it is a document provided by a divided Commission are quite unfair and utterly unjustified. As to the future of the railways, our way to run them is quite plain, and it is entirely opposed to a return to the 1947 Act, which appears to be the Opposition's policy.
As for the way in which we would go on with the railways in the future, I would say that we would hope to go further with the policy of decentralisation and greater regional autonomy, giving a greater chance to railway regions to run their own affairs in their own way, subject only to broad policy control from the top. The right hon. Gentleman said that we were going to sell it off in bits. I do not know anything about that. But I


know that I intend to press forward with greater decentralisation and greater efficiency.
Therefore, I do not accept the Opposition Amendment. On the whole, the debate has followed its normal course. It would have been of much greater value to the Commission and to all those who work on the railways if we had gone through the normal practice of examining

this great industry, which at least I hope we all want to see succeed. I ask the House to reject the Opposition Amendment. It has not been supported by their arguments and I am certain that it is unjustified by the facts.

Question put, That those words be there added:—

The House divided: Ayes 230, Noes 304.

Division No. 177.]
AYES
[9.58 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Gibson, C. W.
Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfld, E.)


Alnsley, J. W.
Gooch, E. G.
Mann, Mrs. Jean


Allaun Frank (Salford, E.)
Grenfell, Rt. Hon. D. R.
Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.


Allen, Arthur (Bosworth)
Grey, C. F.
Mason, Roy


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mayhew, C. P.


Awbery, S. S.
Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)
Mellish, R. J.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Griffiths, William (Exchange)
Mitchlson G. R.


Baird, J.
Hale, Leslie
Monslow, W.


Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Moody, A. S.


Bence, C. R. (Dunbartonshire, E.)
Hamilton, W. W.
Morris, Percy (Swansea, W.)


Benson, Sir George
Hannan, W.
Morrison, Rt. Hn. Herbert (Lewis'm, S.)


Beswick, Frank
Hayman, F. H.
Mort, D. L.


Blackburn, F.
Healey, Denis
Moss, R.


Blenklnsop, A.
Henderson, Rt. Hn. A. (Rwly Regis)
Moyle, A.


Blyton, W. R.
Herbison, Miss M.
Neal, Harold (Bolsover)


Boardman, H.
Hewitson, Capt. M.
Noel-Baker, Rt. Hon. P. (Derby, S.)


Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Hilton, A. V.
O'Brien, Sir Thomas


Bowden, H. W. (Leicester, S. W.)
Hobson, C. R. (Keighley)
Oram, A. E.


Bowles, F. G.
Holman, P.
Orbach, M.


Boyd, T. C.
Holmes, Horace
Oswald, T.


Braddock, Mrs. Elizabeth
Houghton, Douglas
Owen, W. J.


Brockway, A. F.
Howell, Charles (Perry Barr)
Padley, W. E.


Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.
Howell, Denis (All Saints)
Paget, R. T.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Hoy, J. H.
Palmer, A. M. F.


Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pannell Charles (Leeds, W.)


Burke, W. A.
Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Pargiter, G. A.


Burton, Miss F. E.
Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Parker, J.


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Hunter, A. E.
Parkin, B. T.


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Hynd, H. (Accrington)
Paton, John


Callaghan, L. J.
Hynd, J. B. (Attercliffe)
Peart, T. F.


Carmichael, J.
Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Pentland, N.


Castle, Mrs. B. A.
Irving, Sydney (Dartford)
Popplewell, E.


Champion, A. J.
Isaacs, Rt. Hon. G. A.
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Chetwynd, G. R.
Janner, B.
Price, Philips (Gloucestershire, W.)


Cllffe, Michael
Jay, Rt. Hon. D. P. T.
Probert, A. R.


Coidrick, W.
Jeger, George (Goole)
Proctor, W. T.


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jeger, Mrs. Lena (Holbn & St. Pncs, S.)
Pursey, Cmdr. H.


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Randall, H. E.


Cronln, J. D.
Johnson, James (Rugby)
Rankin, John


Crossman, R. H. S.
Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)
Redhead, E. C.


Cullen, Mrs. A.
Jones, Rt. Hon. A. Creech (Wakefield)
Reid, William


Darling, George (Hillsborough)
Jones, David (The Hartlepools)
Reynolds, G. W.


Davies, Ernest (Enfield, E.)
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Rhodes, H.


Davies S. O. (Merthyr)
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Robens, Rt. Hon. A.


Deer, G.
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


de Freitas, Geoffrey
Kenyon, C.
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Delargy, H. J.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Rogers, George (Kensington, N.)


Diamond, John
King, Dr. H. M.
Ross, William


Dodds, N. N.
Lawson, G. M.
Royle, C.


Donnelly, D. L.
Ledger, R. J.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Dugdale, Rt. Hn. John (W. Brmwch)
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Short, E. W.


Ede, Rt. Hon. J. C.
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Skeffington, A. M.


Edelman, M.
Lever, Leslie (Ardwick)
Slater, Mrs. H. (Stoke, N.)


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Lindgren, G. S.
Slater, J. (Sedgefield)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lipton, Marcus
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Edwards, W. J. (Stepney)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Snow, J. W.


Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)
McAlister, Mrs. Mary
Sorensen, R. W.


Evans, Edward (Lowestoft)
McCann, J.
Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank


Fernyhough, E.
MacColl, J. E.
Sparks, J. A.


Fitch, A. E. (Wigan)
MacDermot, Niall
Spriggs, Leslie


Fletcher, Eric
Mclnnes, J.
Steele, T.


Foot, D. M.
McKay, John (Wallsend)
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Forman, J. C.
McLeavy, Frank
Stonehouse, John


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)
Stones, W. (Consett)


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. H. T. N.
Mahon, Simon
Strauss, Rt. Hon. George (Vauxhall)


George, Lady Megan Lloyd (Car'then)
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Stross, Dr. Barnett (Stoke-on-Trent, C.)




Summerskill, Rt. Hon. E.
Watkins, T. E.
Williams, W. T. (Barons Court)


Sylvester, G. O.
Weitzman, D.
Willis, Eustace (Edinburgh, E.)


Symonds, J. B.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)
Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)


Taylor, John (West Lothian)
wells, William (Walsall, N.)
Winterbottom, Richard


Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)
White, Mrs. Eirene (E. Flint)
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A,


Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)
Wigg, George
Woof, R. E.


Thornton, E.
Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.
Yates, V. (Ladywood)


Tomney, F.
Willey, Frederick
Zilliacus, K.


Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn
Williams, David (Neath)



Usborne, H. C.
Williams, Rev. Llywelyn (Ab'tillery)
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Viant, S. P.
Williams, Rt. Hon. T. (Don Valley)
Mr. Pearson and Mr. Wilkins.


Warbey, W. N.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)





NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Dodds-Parker, A. D.
Howard, John (Test)


Aitken, W. T.
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. McA.
Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral J.


Allan, R. A. (Paddington, S.)
Doughty, C. J. A.
Hughes-Young, M. H. C.


Alport, C. J. M.
Drayson, G. B.
Hurd, Sir Anthony


Amery, Julian (Preston, N.)
du Cann, E. D. L.
Hutchison, Michael Clark (E'b'gh, S.)


Amory, Rt. Hn. Heathcoat (Tiverton)
Duncan, Sir James
Hutchison, Sir Ian Clark (E'b'gh, W.)


Arbuthnot, John
Duthie, Sir William
Hutchison, Sir James (Scotstoun)


Armstrong, C. W.
Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David
Hyde, Montgomery


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Eden, J. B. (Bournemouth, West)
Hylton-Foster, Rt. Hon. Sir Harry


Astor, Hon. J. J.
Elliott, R. W. (Ne'castle uponTyne, N.)
Iremonger, T. L.


Atkins, H. E.
Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)


Baldock, Lt.-Cmdr. J. M.
Errington, Sir Eric
Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)


Baldwin, Sir Archer
Erroll, F. J.
Jennings, J. C. (Burton)


Barber, Anthony
Farey-Jones, F. W.
Jennings, Sir Roland (Hallam)


Barlow, Sir John
Fell, A.
Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)


Barter, John
Finlay, Graeme
Johnson, Eric (Blackley)


Batsford, Brian
Fisher, Nigel
Jones, Rt. Hon. Aubrey (Hall Green)


Baxter, Sir Beverley
Fletcher-Cooke, C.
Joseph, Sir Keith


Beamish, Col. Tufton
Foster, John
Kaberry, D.


Bell, Philip (Bolton, E.)
Fraser, Hon. Hugh (Stone)
Kerby, Capt. H. B.


Bell, Ronald (Bucks S.)
Freeth, Denzil
Kerr, Sir Hamilton


Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)
Gammans, Lady
Kershaw, J, A.


Bennett, Dr. Reginald
Garner-Evans, E. H.
Kimball, M.


Bevins, J. R. (Toxteth)
George, J. C. (Pollok)
Kirk, P. M.


Bidgood, J. C.
Gibson-Watt, D.
Langford-Holt, J. A.


Biggs-Davison, J, A.
Glover, D.
Leavey, J. A.


Bingham, R. M.
Glyn, Col. Richard H.
Leburn W. G.


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Godber, J. B.
Legge-Bourke, Maj. E. A. H.


Bishop, F. P.
Goodhart, Philip
Lennox-Boyd, Rt. Hon. A. T.


Black, Sir Cyril
Gough, C. F. H.
Lindsay, Hon. James (Devon, N.)


Body, R. F.
Gower, H. R.
Lindsay, Martin (Solihull)


Bonham Carter, Mark
Graham, Sir Fergus



Bossom, Sir Alfred
Grant, Rt. Hon. W. (Woodside)
Linstead, Sir H. N.


Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon, J. A.
Green, A.
Llewellyn, D. T.


Boyle, Sir Edward
Gresham Cooke, R.
Lloyd, Maj. Sir Guy (Renfrew, E.)


Braine, B. R.
Grimond, J.
Longden, Gilbert


Braithwaite, Sir Albert (Harrow, W.)
Grimston, Hon. John (St. Albans)
Loveys, Walter H.


Brewis, John
Grimston, Sir Robert (Westbury)
Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby


Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. W. H.
Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)


Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Gurden, Harold
Lucas, P. B. (Brentford & Chiswick)


Brooman-White, R. C.
Hall, John (Wycombe)
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh


Browne, J. Nixon (Craigton)
Hare, Rt. Hon. J. H.
Macdonald, Sir Peter


Bryan, P.
Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)
Mackeson, Brig. Sir Harry


Bullus, Wing Commander E. E.
Harris, Reader (Heston)
McLaughlin, Mrs. P.


Butcher, Sir Herbert
Harrison, A. B. C. (Maldon)
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John


Butler, Rt. Hn. R. A. (Saffron Waiden)
Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Lancaster)


Campbell, Sir David
Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)


Carr, Robert
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Macleod, Rt. Hn. lain (Enfield, W.)


Cary, Sir Robert
Harvie-Watt, Sir George
McMaster, Stanley


Channon, H. P. G.
Hay, John
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)


Chichester-Clark, R.
Head, Rt. Hon. A. H.
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)


Cole, Norman
Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)


Conant, Maj. Sir Roger
Henderson, John (Cathcart)
Maddan, Martin


Cooke, Robert
Henderson-Stewart, Sir James
Maitland, Cdr, J. F. w.(Horncastle)


Cooper, A. E.
Hesketh, R. F.
Maitland, Hon. Patrick (Lanark)


Cooper-Key, E. M.
Hicks-Beach, Maj. W. W.
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.


Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.
Hill, Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Markham, Major Sir Frank


Corfield, F. v.
Hill, John (S. Norfolk)
Marlowe, A. A. H.


Courtney, Cdr. Anthony
Hinchingbrooke, Viscount
Marples, Rt. Hon. A. E.


Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)
Hirst, Geoffrey
Marshall, Douglas


Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. O. E.
Hobson, John (Warwlck & Leam'gt'n)
Mathew, R.


Crowder Sir John (Finchley)
Holland-Martin, C. J.
Maudling, Rt. Hon. R.


Crowder, Petre (Rulslip—Northwood)
Holt, A. F.
Mawby, R. L.


Cunningham, Knox
Hope, Lord John
Maydon, Lt.-Comdr. S. L. C.


Currie, G. B. H.
Hornby, R. P.
Medlicott, Sir Frank


Dance, J. C. G.
Hornsby-Smith, Miss M. P.
Milligan, Rt. Hon. W. R.


Davidson, Viscountess
Horobin, Sir Ian
Moore, Sir Thomas


D'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry
Horebrugh, Rt. Hon. Dame Florence
Morrison, John (Salisbury)


Deedes, W. F.
Howard, Gerald (Cambridgeshire)
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles


de Ferranti, Basil
Howard, Hon. Greville (St. Ives)
Nabarro G. D. N.







Nairn, D. L. S.
Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)
Thompson, R. (Croydon, S.)


Neave, Airey
Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)
Thomeycroft, Rt. Hon. P.


Nicholls, Harmar
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Nicholson, Sir Godfrey (Farnham)
Roper, Sir Harold
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Nicolson, N. (B'n'm'th, E. & Chr'ch)
Ropner, Col, Sir Leonard
Turner, H. F. L.


Noble, Michael (Argyll)
Russell, R. S.
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Nugent, Richard
Sandys, Rt. Hon. D.
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Oakshott, Sir Hendrie
Scott-Miller, Cmdr. R.
Vane, W. M. F.


O'Neill, Hn. Phelim (Co. Antrim, N.)
Sharples, R. C.
Vaughan-Morgan, J. K.


Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. W. D.
Shepherd, William
Vickers, Miss Joan


Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Simon, J. E. S. (Middlesbrough, W.)
Vosper, Rt. Hon. D. F.


Orr-Ewing, C. Ian (Hendon, N.)
Smithers, Peter (Winchester)
Wade, D. W.


Page, R. G.
Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)
Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)


Panned, N. A. (Kirkdale)
Soames, Rt. Hon. Christopher
Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)


Partridge, E.
Speir, R. M.
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Derek


Peel, W. J.
Spence, H. R. (Aberdeen, W.)
Wall, Patrick


Peyton, J. W. W.
Stanley, Capt. Hon. Richard
Ward, Rt. Hon. G. (Worcester)


Plckthorn, Sir Kenneth
Stevens, Geoffrey
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Pike, Miss Mervyn
Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)
Webbe, Sir H.


Pilkington, Capt. R. A.
Steward, Sir William (Woolwich, W.)
Webster, David


Pitman, I. J.
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm
Whitelaw, W. S. I.


Pitt, Miss E. M.
Storey, S.
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Pott, H. P.
Stuart, Rt. Hon. James (Moray)
Williams, R. Dudley (Exeter)


Powell, J. Enoch
Studholme, Sir Henry
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Price, Henry (Lewlsham, W.)
Summers, Sir Spencer
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho
Sumner, W. D. M. (Orpington)
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Profumo J. D.
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)
Wood, Hon. R.


Ramsden, J. E.
Taylor, William (Bradford, N.)
Woollam, John Victor


Rawlinson, Peter
Teeling, W.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Redmayne, M.
Temple, John M.



Remnant, Hon. P.
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Renton, D. L. M.
Thomas, P. J. M. (Conway)
Mr. Heath and Mr. Legb.


Rlppon, A. G. F.
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of the Report and Accounts of the British Transport Commission for 1958 and of the Report reappraising the Plan for the Modernisation and Re-equipment of British Railways (Command Paper No. 813).

DINGLE v. ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LIMITED

10.10 p.m.

Mr. J. Langford-Holt: I beg to move,
That leave be given to the proper Officers of this House to attend the trial of the action entered in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice and entitled Philip Barrington Dingle and Associated Newspapers Limited, Arthur George Wareham and Michael Kelly, and to produce and prove the Report of the Committee to whom the Manchester Corporation Bill was referred in the last Session of Parliament and the Journal of this House, so far as it is relevant to the said Report, and also the volumes of the Official Report of Debates appertaining to speeches and remarks concerning the Manchester Corporation Bill, and to give evidence verifying the same.

Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: I beg to second the Motion.

Mr. W. R. Williams: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I wonder whether you would be good enough to give me your guidance on this matter. There are some of

us who feel that there should be an Amendment to this Motion and I am wondering whether, at this stage, you would be prepared to accept a manuscript Amendment to the effect that other papers not defined in the Motion should also be made available to the judiciary when the action takes place. Would you be good enough to accept the manuscript Amendment to make that possible?

Mr. Speaker: I do not see how I could accept a manuscript Amendment at this very late stage of the proceedings. The hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) gave notice of this matter yesterday, and if any Amendments were desired to the Motion they could have been put down.

Mr. L. M. Lever: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely no one would wish to object to this notice of Motion. The desire to be effected by inclusion of certain words is simply to assist the court and not circumscribe the material that the court can call for during the proceedings of the action. As the Motion now stands, the material that the court can call for is limited and not all-inclusive. For example, it does not include minutes of the proceedings of Committees and all notices in writing given by the Clerk under Standing Order No. 199A.
Surely it is the desire of this House to ensure that all the relevant material, irrespective of whether it is in the Journal of the House or not, should be available to the court. As the Motion now stands, minutes of proceedings of Committees and of notices in writing given by the Clerk under Standing Order No. 199A would not be available to the court of justice called upon to try this case.
The situation may very well arise, if this Motion is passed in its present form, that reference may be made to you, Mr. Speaker, during the long Recess, to ask you to use your discretion to ensure that what material should be available should not be partial in regard to any part of the proceedings of this House, but all comprehensive. Therefore, it is only in a desire to assist the court that we should like to move a manuscript Amendment to include minutes of proceedings of Committees and all notices given under Standing Order 199A. If it is a fact—which undoubtedly it is—that those minutes of proceedings and notices would not be available to the court if this Motion were passed in its present form, what harm would be done if these words were added so that the court could have a full range of opportunity, when the trial takes place, of saying, "We want this, we want that, or we want something else"?
The court would not have that power under the Motion. It would not have power to call for minutes of proceedings of Committees or to ask for the notices given in writing under Standing Order 199A. Our desire to Include these words as an Amendment is simply to assist the course of justice and in no way to circumscribe it. Surely justice should be whole and complete and not limited to any part of the proceedings. I make no reference to the merits of the case, or the question of a trial. This is a question of principle, whether the court should have power to call for everything and not for just part of the proceedings.

Mr. Speaker: This has arisen so late that I feel that I might be doing wrong if I allowed an Amendment at this stage. The Motion is quite definite and is in the terms moved by the hon. Member for Shrewsbury yesterday. I do not think that at this stage I should allow a manuscript Amendment, which would be on

facts which I have had no opportunity of judging. Even if such an Amendment were proposed, I should not propose to select it at this late stage.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Further to that point of order. Subject to your confirmation, Mr. Speaker, I suggest that it would facilitate business and help us all if we first discussed the points of order and later discussed the merits of the issue. Do you accept that that is the best course?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that there are now any points of order.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My point of order, Mr. Speaker, if you would be good enough to follow it, is that the Motion in the name of the Prime Minister, relating to the suspension of the rule, appeared only this morning and, therefore, no hon. Member knew until this morning that the Motion of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) would be taken tonight. If that is in accordance with Parliamentary practice, and if it is right to take the Motion now, surely it is also right for you, Mr. Speaker, to give reasonable consideration to a reasonable manuscript Amendment.
Secondly, I should like to ask you, Mr. Speaker, when this Motion appeared on the Order Paper and when the House knew that it would be taken.

Mr. Speaker: The Motion appeared on the Order Paper this morning. It is now past 10 o'clock.

Mr. L. M. Lever: Further to that point of order, Sir. The issue is whether we should limit the consideration of the court to a certain part of the proceedings of the House, or whether we should make all the proceedings, upstairs and downstairs, including all the notices, available to the court.

10.19 p.m.

The Solicitor-General (Sir Harry Hylton-Foster): If the House would hear me upon this point of order, may I say that I know it is the wish of the House merely to facilitate the administration of justice. There is no other purpose. My hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury (Mr. Langford-Holt) moved his Motion yesterday at the time for unopposed business. There were then noises such as happen in the House, and


the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) eventually said that he objected to the Motion on the ground that it might occupy time for Scottish Questions. That was not exactly on the merits of the Motion. In that sense the House had warning that my hon. Friend intended to propose the Motion.
It is no outrage on the business of the House to say that this is a conventional Motion when there is an action at law. There is nothing odd about it that the House should be able to assist. I am sure that the House will realise that what it would be right for the House to order must depend upon the issues in the action.
Rather imagining that hon. Members might want me to be able to tell them on this issue what the action was all about, I have, by consent of both parties to the action, had a look at the proceedings, which normally are, I think, confidential documents until the trial starts. But by agreement of both parties to the action I was allowed to look at them in the hope that I could help at this stage; then I will keep very quiet, because I desire to excite only the judgment of the House.
It is an action for defamation based on an article in the Daily Mail. The article, according to the defendants, said various things which, as to part, were a fair and accurate report of proceedings in the House and, as to another part, were an extract from a Report presented to this House by order of the House. The defendants cannot prove in court either the Report or the proceedings, unless the House gives leave. That is all. Therefore, from the defendants' point of view the whole process of justice is distorted unless we give leave.
Privilege, such as it may be in this context—I do not want to deliver to the House a lecture on the law, which would be boring—would depend essentially, to begin with, on whether it was a fair and accurate report of the proceedings of the House, or, on the other hand, whether the report is something published without malice by the defendants and bona fide. It could be either way round. Obviously, no one could follow that and no jury or judge could judge that unless they had the text of the thing before them.

Mr. L. M. Lever: All the text.

The Solicitor-General: If the hon. Member will forgive me, I am trying to advise the House in as negative, flat and boring manner as I can. Obviously, they cannot judge the issue. I submit to the House that they ought to.
With regard to the kind of point of order which the hon. Member was moving, it all depends on what the issue is on the pleadings. In this context of defamation it is only what the defendants urge is the defence of what they said in their newspaper which is relevant in the interests of anyone at all, as far as one can reasonably see. To suggest introducing other proceedings of the House or other documents, which nobody has thought fit to ask for—I have no doubt that both parties are very competently and skilfully advised—does not seem to me to be developing a point of order, having had an indication from the Chair, which will help the administration of justice, which I know that the House wants to further.

Mr. Speaker: Let us understand where we are. I have proposed to the House the Question on the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury.

Mr. W. Griffiths: On a point of order. Mr. Speaker, I wish to put, through you, a question to the Solicitor-General. I understand that the advice we have been given is to see to it that the House would not wish to place any obstacle in the way of a fair hearing of this action. Of course, we all agree with that. If it be the case that a party to the action wishes to obtain a fuller report of the proceedings or part of the proceedings, is it possible, after the House adjourns tomorrow, for that party to obtain a further part of the proceedings?
Without being a lawyer, I think that the question can be put very simply. I understood the learned Solicitor-General to say that if one party to the legal proceedings has asked to have access to the proceedings of a Select Committee of the House it cannot really be blamed if the other party to those proceedings has not so far made representations to the House. I want to know whether, if the other party to the legal proceedings wishes later to have revealed to it, for


instance, the minutes of the proceedings of the Select Committee, there is any reason why that should not be granted.
I take it that that is why my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) and my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Openshaw (Mr. W. R. Williams) sought to persuade you, Mr. Speaker, to permit a manuscript Amendment. But, if we are not doing an injustice to either party to the legal proceedings, I am quite satisfied.

Mr. Speaker: I will tell the House how the matter appears to me. This Motion is necessary because of a Resolution passed by this House—in, I think, 1818—which said that an Officer of the House should not be allowed to give evidence about proceedings in this House without the leave of the House. Therefore, the Officers of the House necessary to produce and prove these documents cannot appear in court unless this Motion is passed.
The hon. Member for Shrewsbury moved his Motion yesterday without notice, as he is entitled to do. Objection was taken to it. It is now put down for today, and appeared on the Order Paper this morning. Had it been desired to amend it or alter it in any way, and had I been given notice of the matter, I would have had time to consider it and to act upon it, but I am not going to enlarge the documents that are to be produced at this trial without having an opportunity of satisfying myself that the cause of justice demands it.
In answer to the hon. Member for Manchester, Exchange (Mr. W. Griffiths), who asked whether, if we passed this

Motion tonight and it is found later that further documents are needed, I would say that it is usual for the Speaker, during a Recess or an Adjournment of the House—if application is made to him that certain documents are necessary to serve the cause of justice, and he is given an opportunity of examining the matter fully—for him to give leave.
That is the practice that has been followed hitherto, but I could not safely enlarge this Motion tonight, not having had a moment to consider it and not knowing what is intended. I think, therefore, that I should put the Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for Shrewsbury, seconded, I think, by the hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst).

Mr. L. M. Lever: Before the Question is put, Mr. Speaker—as I shall not have an opportunity to do so once it is carried—I should like now to say how grateful the House is for the expressions of opinion that you have just given, that we welcome them, and that we are perfectly satisfied.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That leave be given to the proper Officers of this House to attend the trial of the action entered in the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice and entitled Philip Barrington Dingle and Associated Newspapers Limited, Arthur George Wareham and Michael Kelly, and to produce and prove the Report of the Committee to whom the Manchester Corporation Bill was referred in the last Session of Parliament and the Journal of this House, so far as it is relevant to the said Report, and also the volumes of the Official Report of Debates appertaining to speeches and remarks concerning the Manchester Corporation Bill, and to give evidence verifying the same.

TRANSPORT, CUMBERLAND

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Brooman-White.]

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Peart: I wish to speak on a matter affecting not only my constituency but the County of Cumberland. I know that it has coincided with a major debate on transport, but I have been fortunate enough to obtain the Adjournment and I wish to draw attention to the needs of Cumberland and to my own constituency of Workington. Most of my constituency lies in what is known as the West Cumberland Development Area, but I also have in my constituency a very famous part of England—a large part of the Lake District.
I wish to draw attention to the needs of Cumberland, with particular reference to West Cumberland, for improved road services, and above all to prevent the British Transport Commission closing down railways. I do not want to labour the point too much, because my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Symonds), a neighbouring constituency to mine, wishes to support my point of view.
First, on roads, I stress that roads are vital to our area because we are a Development Area and we are anxious that new industry should still be attracted for we still have an unemployment problem. If our industry is to develop we must have good roads so that we have an easy access for goods produced in the area and specifically an easy access towards the southern industrial parts, passing down from my constituency through Whitehaven. We have a very serious problem. In the southern part of Cumberland, leading from my area, the road situation is really serious. We need major road improvement schemes. More than that, much of the heavy road traffic from West Cumberland has to go across country through the Lakeland area, along narrow roads which are used in the summer by tourist traffic.
I have raised this matter on many occasions, not only with the Parliamentary

Secretary but with the Minister himself and also with Ministers in previous Governments. The Parliamentary Secretary is aware that I have met him, with my hon. Friends the Members for the various Cumberland divisions, including the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Monslow) and the hon. Member for More-cambe and Lonsdale (Mr. de Ferranti). We have pressed this matter on the Minister and we have asked that he shall make a decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness, who represented our deputation in the sense that he did most of the hard organisational work, wrote to the Minister on 14th July about the north-west coast roads. He wrote as follows:
You will recall that Members for the Fur-ness, Cumberland, Morecambe and Lonsdale Divisions met you on Wednesday, 8th April, to make representations as to the possibility of improvements in certain roads. You indicated that you would give consideration to the suggestions submitted and intimate your decision later on. I should be obliged if you could now let me have your observations.
All I am asking the Minister is whether we can have a decision now. Are the Government really going to act? Are we going to have a major road improvement scheme in West Cumberland? I merely want frankness from the Government either way. Let us have an answer. If the answer is not favourable, I can assure him, despite the nearness of the General Election, that we in the north-west of England will continue to press this matter, irrespective of the type of political administration which is controlling transport. We feel it is a vital issue in the development of our area. We believe that roads are vital to this area which, after all, is geographically isolated.
We are not a large area, but we are an important area with new industrial developments like Calder Hall and the Atomic Energy Authority establishment at Windscale, which is a major industrial organisation. Therefore, it is vital for this area that we have a major road improvement scheme and, above all, that the Government, after discussing this matter with the deputations which have met him, should make a decision and that we should have an understanding of what our position is. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to give an answer about the road position, which is important.
I will now pass on very quickly to the railway position. It has been suggested in our area that the railway line between Workington and Penrith, which runs west to east right across the County of Cumberland, passing through my own constituency of Workington and including towns like Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith, is to be closed. We have had as yet no definite information on the matter. I hope that the Minister will use his influence to see that this is not done.
For various reasons, it is madness to suggest that this railway should be closed. The suggestion has aroused a storm of protest in the area and has created a body of public opinion which is of a non-political nature. I have here a copy of a resolution passed by the local authorities in the area. I will quickly read the gist of it. It states:
Resolved that this conference of representatives from all the local authorities interested (that is to say, the Cumberland County Council, the Workington Borough Council, the Urban District Councils of Cockermouth, Keswick, Maryport and Penrith, the Rural District Councils of Cockermouth and Penrith and the Cumberland Parish Councils Association) deplores any attempt to close the Penrith-Workington Railway (which is the main connecting link between East and West Cumberland) and will take all steps within its power to oppose such closure which it is considered will inflict untold hardship on the inhabitants, industries and trading of the whole area within the jurisdiction of the said local authorities and aggravate the unemployment position.
It then goes on to argue:
The whole question of closure of railways is one of utmost national importance and of serious consequence in the Lake District particularly so when the Government itself has thought it desirable to create the first National Park in the North in this area for the benefit of the public at large and is seeking to attract foreign visitors to come and enjoy its lovely surroundings and should therefore ensure adequate means of different methods of transport rather than to curtail them.
The resolution goes on to argue further:
Any closure would impose a greater burden on the already overcrowded roads and further as many branch lines in Cumberland have been dismantled the county has contributed to the needs of the British Transport Commission …
They are the terms of a resolution which was passed by all the local authorities not only in my constituency but right throughout the county.
I have here many resolutions which have been sent to me from trade union organisations and from the men working in the industry. I have also a letter from the Workington branch of the N.U.R. deploring such action. I have, too, correspondence from the Lake District Resorts Federation, of which I am an honorary vice-president. That Federation, also, has expressed its concern in the matter. I have resolutions from Chambers of Trade in the area. More than that, I have had literally dozens of letters from my constituents in the area protesting against any such closure.
I have argued earlier about roads. We have an acute road problem, and, therefore, it would be madness for the British Transport Commission to close this main line in the area.
Cockermouth is a very well known town in my constituency, on the fringe of the Lake District and near to Workington. Cockermouth has a goods depot which receives coal for the area, animal feeding stuffs, and agricultural machinery for sale in the area. It receives bulk supplies of petrol, by railway tanks. It has a new cattle dock and pens with electricity laid on. We have an auction market there. To agriculture in the district, the railway is very important. Although he is now in the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation, I know that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's first love is agriculture, and he was a very successful junior Minister concerned with agriculture in the past. He will appreciate that, from the point of view of agriculture in this area, which he knows well, it is vital that we should have essential rail communications.
Keswick is a wonderful tourist centre. It lies in my constituency also, and I am very proud of Keswick and its beauty in that northern Lakeland area. Keswick, so I understand from people concerned with these matters, receives in one year 125,000 passengers at its station. From Keswick station itself, I understand, there are in one year about 27,400 bookings. In one week, for example, when the famous Keswick Convention is held, there are between 7,000 and 8,000 visitors to Keswick. In the summer and later on in the year thousands of visitors come to Keswick from all over the world.


They come to see this lovely centre of Lakeland.
How stupid it would be if the British Transport Commission decided to close that railway station and the line which links the main London lines at Penrith 18 miles away. The tourist coming from London to Lakeland and going to Keswick would have to leave the main train, take a bus, and then proceed with all his luggage to Keswick itself. The whole idea is absurd.
The area is a great tourist centre which must develop, as we seek to develop it, and its development must not be impeded by any stupid action on the part of those who would like to restrict its railway communications.
I have put my case very briefly tonight so that my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven will have the opportunity to support what I say and give an indication of what he feels about the situation in his own constituency. In conclusion, I merely add that we regard any proposed closure of this line as a serious blow not only to our country life, to our local agricultural industry and to our important tourist industry, but also to the needs of our Development Area. I beg the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to use his influence with the British Transport Commission. I hope that the people in the Commission who are responsible will read the report of this debate in HANSARD, even at this stage, and will recognise that we in Cumberland will fight this proposal and do all we can to oppose it. More than that, I hope that the Minister will give me a definite reply about our roads.

10.43 p.m.

Mr. J. B. Symonds: I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). As another Member from Cumberland, I wish, first of all, to express my dissatisfaction and the dissatisfaction of very many people in the Whitehaven area at the closing of the Eskmeals station. I have already sent my protest to the Minister. There are 30 workmen who use the Eskmeals station at present, and the closure will mean great inconvenience to them. They will have to get off the railway somewhere in the area and take an inadequate bus service. As a result, the men must now either rise earlier or be late for work. That would

mean a loss of production, which nobody desires.
It has been said that the goods traffic will be sent by road. I would like the Minister to travel along that road. The driver of a motor car cannot exceed 30 m.p.h. because there are too many twists and turns in it.
Let me deal with the line from Whitehaven to Millom and then on to Barrow, and particularly between Millom, in my constituency, and Whitehaven. Having travelled in the carriages now in operation, my feeling is that they were some of the first ever used on the line. They are not a credit to British Railways. They should be done away with and replaced by new rolling stock. The best way to deal with the problem, and to assist particularly in the St. Bees area for the Ennerdale Rural District Council, which is trying to develop the whole of the coastline as a resort, is not to close any stations, but to modernise that section and bring it up to date.
Colleagues of mine have been 25 minutes late in travelling from Millom to Whitehaven, and vice versa. It is not uncommon for me to receive, as did my predecessor, complaints from constituents concerning the lateness of the train. Modernisation would benefit not only the workers, but others who desire to use the line. It would mean that instead of the line losing money, the area would be opened up and money would be made. If the Minister seriously considers this matter and makes a personal visit to see for himself, I think he will agree that something must be done for this part of the country.

10.48 p.m.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Richard Nugent): I have been a long time on the Front Bench today, starting with Questions, going on to a debate about transport and the Transport Commission generally and finishing up by answering the debate raised by the hon. Member for Workington (Mr. Peart). I sympathise with the anxiety which, I know, he feels about road and rail links with the towns in the North-West and especially with Workington.
First, let me say a word about the road links. I have clearly in mind the


deputation that the hon. Member accompanied to see me about this matter last April. Although there seems to have been a long delay, time has not been wasted, because the surveyors of the three county councils—Cumberland, Westmorland and Lancashire—have been proceeding with the preparatory work for the survey which, I felt, should be undertaken.
I have not written to the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends, and, indeed, my own hon. Friends, because I was not clear in my own mind what would be the right way to complete the survey which should be made of the road links with this area.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is a problem to decide which would be the best route to back. It is obvious that we cannot back them all. The problem is to link Workington and Whitehaven with the A.6. There is the possibility of improving the coast road, but the bad gradients and alignment would make it a very expensive job, although it has certain attractions. There is also the possibility of improving the A.594 road via Keswick and linking up with towns on the coast, and of the A.595 having a branch off it and running round on the north to link up with the A.6. It is a difficult problem to decide which is the best route.
The only way to proceed is to have a complete survey made of the area. I was not clear whether our divisional road engineer would be able to manage it along with all the other commitments that he has, but in the event we have decided that he should co-ordinate the work of the three county surveyors. He has been asked if he will go ahead and get this survey made of the possibility of improving one of those three routes.

Mr. Peart: The hon. Gentleman says that it is to be one of those three routes. Has he made a decision which one it is to be, or will he have a survey made of the whole picture, followed by a political decision by the Minister?

Mr. Nugent: The survey will throw up the technical pros and cons and what the cost will be. The cost on the coast road would obviously be very heavy. There are amenity objections to the Keswick route. The northern route is more

attractive except for the problem of line. We want a professional survey and we shall then decide which route should be developed in the future. At that point we shall have to consider when we can bring this development into the road programme. On that I can say nothing tonight.
The delegation to which the hon. Gentleman referred was very helpful in bringing to our attention the need for preparatory work and getting on with it as fast as we can. When we have taken our decision I shall let the hon. Gentleman know.
The problem of the rail link is that the British Transport Commission is considering the closure of the Penrith-Workington railway. A Press statement was issued in May saying that this closure, and others, were being considered. I realise that this is a blow. I take note of the grave anxiety expressed by the hon. Gentleman on behalf of the local authorities, and the effect that it would have on the farming community. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his kindly reference to me. The farming world is my world and I am very sensitive to the interests of the farming community.
I realise how important the tourist industry is, and I hope to see it developed. This railway is not only convenient, but very beautiful. I feel as unhappy as the hon. Gentleman does that it should be necessary for the Commission to consider making this proposal. The proposal will go through the statutory procedure. It is not for me to express any view on the merits of the proposal. The area transport users' consultative committee, set up under the 1947 Act, will consider the merits of this proposal. The committee will hear objections from local authorities and others who are concerned with the proposal, and will then advise the Minister, through the central committee. If the central committee approves—and it does not always do so—it can modify or reject the decision of the area committee—it then advises the Minister and a copy of its recommendation is sent to the Commission. The statutory procedure is there to protect the local interests as far as possible.
But I do not know the facts of this matter. I believe that the Commission has been running a diesel train over this


line in the hope of increasing its profitability, and obviously in the hope that it might make unnecessary the proposals that it is now considering making. These proposals do not come from us. They are nothing to do with us. The Commission, which consists of railwaymen, does not propose closures where there is any prospect of keeping the railway going, and I can only suppose that after having tried the diesel train there, and done its best to make the line profitable, it simply cannot see any prospect of doing so. But I do not wish to enlarge on the matter, because I do not know the merits of the case.
All I would do is briefly to paraphrase what the House has been saying this evening during the general debate on the affairs of the Commission, namely, that an essential part of the modernisation of our railways is the streamlining of the uneconomic and unremunerative services. That is accepted everywhere generally, although each Member objects strongly—as I have no doubt I would—to any proposal to close a line in his constituency. Looking at the national picture, however, we cannot deny that ours is a railway system laid out in the days of long ago, before the motor-car had arrived, and that large parts of it are no longer going to be remunerative.
Unless the railways are allowed to shed the parts which they cannot make remunerative and concentrate on the parts which they can, by modernising them to the best standard, they will have no prospect of meeting their obligations, firmly laid upon them by the 1947 Act, of achieving solvency. That is the broad tenor of the debate we had earlier today and both sides of the House must accept it.
But having sketched in that background, I do not wish in any way to reduce the weight of the case which the hon. Member has put. I am certain that the Commission will read HANSARD closely—as it always does on these occasions—and I have no doubt that the transport users' consultative committee will also read it when it considers the

case, and will take into account the cogent representations made by the hon. Member.

Mr. Edward Short: Would the Minister bear in mind that this is only a bit of the line concerned? The railway is to be closed from Keswick, through Penrith and right across to Durham. This is not a railway running through some remote valley, but a major route right across the country, from the industrial area of Durham to the industrial area of Cumberland. It is far more serious than the closing of a little bit of line.

Mr. Nugent: I realise that, and I was prepared for the hon. Member to intervene. It is a major closure and, therefore, it will have very full consideration by the transport users' consultative committees concerned before the Commission can go ahead with it. I realise the gravity of the proposition.
As for the point put by the hon. Member for Whitehaven (Mr. Symonds) about the closing of the Eskmeals station, I would point out that he wrote to my right hon. Friend, and that I replied to him on 22nd July explaining that the local transport users' consultative committee had considered this matter and had referred it to the central committee, who endorsed its decision on it on the 14th of this month. This was that the proposal must be approved and that the closure of the station would, therefore, have to proceed.
I explained that the circumstances would have to be most exceptional be fore my right hon. Friend could go against the advice of the central committee, and I am afraid that in the circumstances, much as I would like to meet the hon. Member's point, my right hon. Friend does not feel that he could give a direction to the Commission—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock, and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Eleven o'clock.